We spent about 45 minutes at the ruins, the we hopped in our cars and drove to our home. I’d thought about doing a shoot in our kitchen, with brownies or muffins or something, but in the end I decided that our kitchen is just too terracotta and I didn’t want that immortalized. Cinnamon Buns also wanted to get photos of us in front of our bookcases, cuddling on the couch, drinking tea, playing Wii… all the things we do normally when we’re at home together. Once again, all photos in the post are by Fotograffika.

We both changed into some of our favourite comfy clothes.

Snuggled.

Cuddled.

Canoodled.

Goofed off.

(sidenote: I love how our bookcases look in black and white!)

Drank tea from our matching mugs (his is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, mine is Dame Agatha Christie)

Then a round of Mario Kart, complete with ticklefight when we were done! (Mosaic by me, with photos by Fotograffika)

Disapproving fish is disapproving!

I am so happy we did some of our engagement shoot at home, and amazed that Vanson got such great pictures. I always think of our house as a little dim – we face north, and we’re a few feet below grade – but with the help of a great day and a great photographer, it almost looks like a magazine house! Oh, and the tremendous amount of cleaning both of us put in in the days leading up to the shoot.

Would you consider doing engagement photos at your home?

Well hive, I showed you the sneak peeks of our engagement photos that our photographers gave us a little while ago. Yesterday we picked up the entire DVD of images! I was amazed, we got 150+ images out of about an hour of shooting! We’ve booked Fotograffika for our wedding with two shooters, and there was an engagement session (with one photographer) included in the package. I talked a little about our choices for locations – we decided on the ruins, and then our house. To keep these posts a reasonable length, I’ve split up the locations into their own posts. No promises on length though, I wish I could share all 153 photos!

We eased into it by taking some photos by the side of this rustic red building that’s right beside the ruins.

I found out what they’re ruins of! There was a hospital built there in 1894, and demolished in 1973. They were sneaky with the ruins though – they demolished the whole thing, did the landscaping, then  put some hospital bits back! That’s cheating in my book!

It was a gorgeous sunny day – but much too cold to be wearing a short-sleeved dress and leaning against stone walls! Whenever I got too cold, I just put my coat back on, so we’ve coat and non-coat photos. I was happy for my tights, and I was also wearing a thin camisole and a half slip under the dress. We were lucky – days before it had been snowing!

The photoshoot was pretty easy in that we’re not a couple that shies away from PDA. We kiss on street corners when we’re waiting for the light to change, we give each other little kisses in the grocery store, we kiss if we see each other in the hallway at work, we always hold hands when we’re walking together… we’re probably some people’s pet peeve! But, it meant we weren’t awkward kissing for the camera.

We were there at a good time of day  – lots of lovely morning sun in the east (you can see some frost on the grass in the bottom right corner of that photo!).

I didn’t think I was that good at acting warm!

Here’s one with our coats on. At least Cinnamon Buns was wearing long sleeves to begin with, lucky bun!

I love this peekaboo shot around the tree!

I did my makeup myself, because I decided to get my hair done. I went to the MAC counter a few days before and got this great lip stuff: MAC Pro Longwear Lipcolour (colour: For Keeps). It’s got two parts, one is the colour, one is the clear gloss for on top. The colour does not budge at all, and the gloss is nice and shiny (I prefer shine to matte – I only own lipgloss, no lipsticks!). For the rest of my makeup, I used Bare Escentuals. Some people say not to use mineral makeup for photos because it reflects funny, but I haven’t noticed a problem. It’s one of the few makeups that doesn’t make my face itchy, so I’m sticking with it!

Doesn’t it look like summer in this photo? I’m so happy the photos didn’t turn out too wintery, and my short-sleeved dress didn’t look silly!

The Cinnamon Buns in their natural state – with books in their hands. I mentioned this in the preview post, but we’re both reading The Hobbit, and my copy is my dad’s copy and the one he read to me from when I was little.

That’s as much as I could narrow it down! If you’re on the fence, totally do an engagement shoot. It was great getting to know how our photographer works, and what goes in to it all. We also confirmed that we’re going to have to do something about Cinnamon Buns’ transition glasses lenses before our wedding photos! I think he looks great in these photos, but I don’t want ‘sunglasses’ in our wedding photos.

Next we welcome our photographer (and now the hive!) into our home.