Mark and I spent a lovely afternoon with my friend, Steven of Steven C. De La Cruz Photography today. After over two months of actually being engaged, we were finally able to coordinate and have our engagement photos shot.

And let me just tell you, though I know it is difficult to judge the quality of a photograph through a tiny camera view finder, I am 100% certain that these photos are incredible. We got to look through every image that was taken, and we were both so blown away. They are everything we both wanted…and so much more.

Though Steven may not be the nerd we both are, he had so many incredible ideas for our very unique approach to engagement photos. And he even did research, which I love!

So, I guess it is time to let the cat out of the proverbial bag. I told you this was a theme shoot, right. Well…you get two guesses…

You’ll only need one.

That’s right. We shot Harry Potter inspired Engagement photos.

The location that Steven picked out for the shoot was wonderful…it just felt magical and so full of whimsy.

And even with our awesome Hogwarts inspired garb…

…he took a ton of photos that are just sweet, romantic engagement photos.

We also took quite a few silly and awesome engagement photos…there MAY have been some dueling.

I do want to give credit to the photos that inspire this shoot. For the most part, we took our pictures in a different direction, but had I never seen these engagement photos, I may never have had the guts to shoot our own version.

The Photographer is Brooke Aliceon of Brook Aliceon Photography. Check out the amazing photos that started me on this journey.

Mark and I actually took a picture really similar to this one (with a Time Turner) and I never even saw this photo until a few minutes ago when I went to save photos to blog. I guess I just looked at it briefly thinking they were just hugging or something, or never noticed it at all (The flying broomsticks photos did take up most of my attention). How funny. All Potter Fans think alike.

And rather than using the Harry Potter novels in our photos, we chose to take our shoot more in the direction of , “We could actually be living in the world of Harry Potter.” So it’s no books or anything else. We look like we could have been another couple that just wasn’t mentioned in the story).

So these were the photos that inspired today’s shoot. Aren’t they beautiful?

With the possibility of a very magical wedding reception, I am so glad I went with my gut and did the theme that I wanted. I cannot wait to see them all!

What inspired your engagement photos?