Autumn Foliage Engagement Photos in Connecticut | West Hartford CT Photography | Fall Leaves for Engagement Pics

Ashleigh & Joe

It was 6:30AM when I pulled up to the parking lot at the reservoir near Hartford, CT where I was going to meet up with Ashleigh and Joe for their engagement session. I was relieved that these two were all aboard for the idea of a sunrise sesh (turns out they are early risers anyway!) because the light is just SO worth it, and this morning did not disappoint.

The parking lot was totally empty and only a little bit of light had begun to break at that point. The morning chill was pretty real and wasn’t promising to warm up any time soon, but I was walking around by the reservoir watching the fog rising up gave me a real sense that I was happy to be out in nature, despite the early wake up. I sipped on my coffee and waited for the dawn to break and Ashleigh and Joe to arrive.

When they pulled up, I could just tell that we were about to have a great morning. Ashleigh and I both went to The Ethel Walker School and it was fun to have that common ground while also catching up on life post-high school. It has been twelve years since I graduated from Walkers, and it was there where I discovered photography for the first real time in the darkroom. My graduating class was only 36 to paint a picture of how small our school was, so even though Ashleigh was in a younger class, we were such a tight knit community that everyone knew everyone. I’m so lucky to get to revisit many of these friendships now as a lot of my old classmates are getting married and we have the privilege of shooting their weddings!

I also loved getting to know Joe a bit, too. They have such a fun and whimsical energy between them, but you can also tell that their relationship has a super solid foundation. I think my favorite takeaway from our morning together was when we were chatting and I asked them how quarantine has been for both of them. I got a surprisingly positive response from Joe, “It' has been amazing for us!” he started, “It sort of fast-tracked our relationship, actually”. COVID was the reason that Joe was able to move up to Ashleigh and brought them closer both literally and figuratively. A silver lining for an otherwise crazy year, indeed!