After our initial consultation with Lilia & Lou, I turned to Ryan and said, “They are so much cooler than we are.”  She’s a blogger for the New Times. He’s a musician that used to play bass guitar for the Miniature Tigers. Yes, very cool indeed.  Many months later, after having the chance to get to know this amazing couple, my opinion remains the same except for one thing, I’m now aware of just HOW MUCH cooler they are then us!  LOL!.  All joking aside though, it has been a total pleasure getting to know Lilia & Lou.  They are both such genuine and heartfelt people with a great passion for life and the things that they love.  We had the great pleasure of capturing their awesome wedding day just a few days ago, but the week before that, we got together for a bridal session. They made the wise choice to book a bridal session with us the week before their wedding so they’d have the chance to really focus on getting some awesome images without having to worry about schedules and such on the big day.   And boy, did it pay off.  They’re both total naturals in front of the camera so it made our jobs super easy.

(Please sign the guestbook if you’d like to be notifed when the rest of their photos are online.)
AND don’t forget to click “love” under your favorite images along the way!

Lilia & Lou choose the Desert Botanical Garden for their bridal session.  They both have a true love of Arizona and all that it entails.  The garden made a perfect backdrop for them.  As always, we started out with a first look.

Love this image of Lou.  You can just see the admiration in his eyes for his bride-to-be.

We’ve been looking forward to shooting a bride with a short dress forever, so Lilia was a dream come true.  She looked amazing!  Totally chic and stylish with a great understated elegance.  Her mom made the dress she wore for the bridal session AND a second (slightly different) dress for the wedding day.  You’ll all have to hold your breath for a few days to see what that one will be like when we post a preview of their wedding :-)

The night before the session she put together her own bouquet.  Well done!  Love how the fall colors complimented the natural tones of the Garden.

Love the slight moodiness in this next one.

A prerequisite to pulling off the short wedding dress . . . great legs!  Check :-)

Our instruction for this shot was something like, “Sit here and be yourselves.”   Love the result.  They have such a great relaxed way with each other.

Total sweetness :-)

Looking for a good “Core” workout?  Try this pose ;-)  LOL!

In addition to having such an awesome couple to work with, we were also blessed with some amazing light!  (Another great benefit of a bridal session – you get to chose the best light for photography rather than just shoot whenever if fits into the schedule of your wedding day.  It’s pretty awesome . . . just sayin’. )  Totally loving the sun in these two.  I have to admit, between the two of us, Ryan is the sunflare expert, but I’m proud to say that the image on the left is mine!

Loved the way the light was hitting the trees behind them in this scene.  And those little yellow flowers?  Perfection.  By the way, did I say “Rawr”?

So we were actually a little late meeting these guys because we were busy trying to stuff a piece of furniture from our living room into the back of my rather small SUV!  They loved the idea of doing some shots on our chaise lounge in the middle of the desert so we headed just  down the road to Papago Park.  The garden tends to frown on guests bringing in their own furniture :-)

Apparently our chaise belongs in the great outdoors . . . and it does seem to look extra good with a gorgeous bride seated on it.  Love love LOVE!

The necklace Lilia is wearing is a family heirloom made from an earring that belonged to her great–great-grandmother.   The gold it’s made out of came from the California gold rush.  So cool.  By the way, how amazing are Lilia’s eyes?

I’d say that Lou looks like a stud, but that doesn’t sound cool enough.  Like a rockstar maybe?  Yeah, that’s a little better.  Either way, you’re a lucky women Miss Lilia :-)

In our house, shoes ARE permitted on the furniture.  And apparently, bringing the furniture to the middle of the desert is also totally normal.  That’s just how the Gotchers roll.

Stay tuned for images from Lilia & Lou’s wedding!  It’s gonna be A-MA-ZING!