From my weddings blog for any last-minute entries:
Introducing, my first-ever engagement session giveaway!! I figured I’d show some love to my pitiful weddings blog and am super excited to offer one free session to a lucky couple. Details below.My husband and I met when my family moved to Haughton, Louisiana, when I was 10. You’ve never heard of it? Yeah, I wasn’t too thrilled either.

So, back in 5th grade, we lived in the same neighborhood, and he and I rode the same bus together. My only memory of him them was him using my arm to smack my leg and say, “quit hittin’ yourself, quit hittin’ yourself” (in his country bumpkin accent that I’m now cursed blessed with) while he laughed and I got embarrassed. I’m pretty sure it was not a case of “oh, he liked you!”

***Which, side note tangent, why in the world do we tell girls that boys pick on them because they like them?? Let’s collectively knock it off. Anyway, I’m certain it was a case of him just being a little punk kid.

Fast forward through junior high and then to freshman year of high school when I was over-the-moon crazy about him. Through years of strategic seat selection in class, a teeny tiny fib about how I was super-into his not-so-cool survival book on how to live in the wilderness on your own (so, ok, we both had our punk moments), and an even bigger fib about being the biggest Seinfeld fan (his favorite show), I would love to say he finally fell in love with me.

Not so much.

After a polite “thanks, but no thanks” to my sweet homecoming dance request, I finally accepted my fate as his friend, and we really did become best friends for a year.

During that time, he finally realized he didn’t need a cheerleading beauty queen and what he really wanted was the occasionally funny, mousy nerd who made him laugh and laughed at everything he did.

After a year of truly being best friends, we got the timing right, fell in love, and started dating.

We went to college together and quickly got engaged.

Hang in there, I’m getting to the point soon.

We didn’t have time to get engagement pictures done, because we were both commissioning into the military at graduation and had to be married before we filled out our “dream sheets,” so we could attempt to be stationed together. We had a whirlwind 3 months to plan (thank goodness for my future sister-in-law/matron of honor who did EVERYTHING), and we were married the day before our senior year of college.

Here’s my point: If I could go back and had the time and money to do, I would have LOVED a beach engagement session. The picture above is from our 15-year anniversary pictures he did for me, courtesy of a tripod and a lot of running back and forth.

So I’d like to make a beach engagement session happen for a couple who didn’t get them done either.

Do you know a couple in love who never got the chance to have an engagement session? I’d love to give them a session for you on their behalf. Or, are you part of a couple who never had those beach engage picture you always wanted? Nominate yourself.

The catch is that our timing has to work out: I’ll be at a few Northwest Florida beaches in June and Galveston beach in June and July.

Let’s send some love and joy and romance out into the world. To enter, please comment with a few sentences about who/why you’re nominating, and I’ll pick a lucky winner at random on May 31st.

Since I’m always going to encourage you to put your lovely images up on your walls, I want to show you I practice what I preach:

If you don’t win or don’t schedule an engagement session, have a friend take them, or get a little tripod and a camera with a timer.

Love, Andrea

andrea.bacle@gmail.com or 508.768.5808