Bringing Sexy Back... To the Beach
Beach Sexy. Beach. Sexy. BeachSexy. SexyBeach. The words look good to me any way you pair them. It took 10 years, but two weeks ago the day finally came that a bride-to-be reached out to me for an engagement shoot and said those words. DREAMS DO COME TRUE!!!!
Sunday’s shoot with Haley & Kyle was BEYOND a dream for me. Not only have I been dying to do a hot engagement session on the beach for pretty much my whole career, but unbeknownst to her, I’ve been secretly hoping for the last 5 years that Haley would be the one to ask me to do it. And then it happened!!! Aaaaaaa!!!!!
I met Haley about 5 years ago when I finally decided it was time to do something “grown up” with my hair. A friend recommended the salon where Haley works, but not a specific stylist. To schedule an appointment online I had to pick someone from the list and her awesome name (Haley Berry) jumped out at me. I definitely made the right choice. At my first appointment I kinda just stared in awe as Haley came out to get me from the waiting room. Long, blonde, wavy locks, 5’ 10” at least, a super stylish badass vibe and a kind smile that just made me feel like it was ok that I had been the nerdy girl with a bad haircut in middle school because she was going to make it all better. And she has. 🙂
Ok, ok ok, enough with the sappy stuff for now (because I really could go on and on and then we would never get to Beach Sexy!).
Sunday. 5PM. The beach. Kyle and Haley step out of his big white pickup truck like it was a chariot. She is draped in a pale pink dress that flows delicately behind her as it catches in the wind. Kyle, who I’m meeting for the first time, looks great with his tan and tattoos in a white polo and a huge smile. If I were him, I’d be smiling too. Considering how were about to spend the next hour and a half. Wink, wink.
Then I get lost in what feels like a pink haze until the sun sets just before 7 PM. The whole time it felt like I was inside of this warm tornado of weightless, carefree devotion. Love and passion and laughter and joy. It was all around us. It felt incredible to be involved in something so intense and so real. It was so… I could try to explain it but my words won’t honor the emotions that passed between Haley & Kyle in the way that the photographs do.
Haley & Kyle, your love is not the fleeting, anxious love of youth. It is an old love, a wise and patient love. One that has seen good times and difficult times and has triumphed because of the souls that nurture it. I feel my own understanding of love has been deepened by this experience, and I am so grateful that you chose to share it with me. XOXO