There is a well-known pathway at UCLA known as Bruinwalk. It is probably the most frequented route to get to class – a wide walkway lined with tables, where members from campus clubs sit, hang out, chat, and bombard you mercilessly with flyers. I have fond memories of both handing out flyers (I know, GUILTY AS CHARGED), and strategically avoiding being flyered to (the secret is in pretending your phone/ipod ear buds are surgically attached to your head.)

But for Yessica & Fernando, Bruinwalk holds even more fond memories. It is where they met and had their first conversation, sitting at one of the flyer-laden tables. And years later, it is where Fernando brought Yessica back, to relax together, to reminisce, and to ask to be his wife :)

They are the sweetest couple, and I loved photographing them at the campus where they met and fell in love!

It’s an amazing thing how memories can turn a regular place into the most beautiful location. What was once just a coffee shop, or a city park, or a stretch of shops, becomes a place you recall in your mind with so much love and adulation. Suzanne & Rob chose UCLA for their engagement session, a location that served as the place where they first met (a story not too different from Scott & my own :), and as we walked around the campus, they pointed out the spots where their memories were created.

I loved how the session came out – it wasn’t the cover of a UCLA brochure, with Royce Hall & the Sculpture Garden in the background, it was the UCLA that Suzanne & Rob remembered best. It was the hallways where they had neighboring offices, where they belonged to student coalitions fighting hunger and homelessness in LA, it was the “less-scenic” South Campus where they would meet between classes, it was the back lunch patio by a familiar building.

I hope when Suzanne & Robert look through these photos, they can feel filled to the brim with memories of excitement and happy moments :)

Stay tuned for Part II, camping in the wilderness! A tent, hot chocolate, and piggy back rides soon to come!

Suzanne told me that she specifically bought her shirt for the session, & that it was from *swoon* none other than Anthropologie. I think Anthro’s romantic styles always look so beautiful in photos!

I was sitting at a burrito stand in Westwood when she called me with the news. “I’m engaged!!” she told me, her voice brimming with happiness and disbelief. After getting all the juicy details, I hung up and turned to Scott, my dining partner, and babbled excitedly about my friend Joyce who he had yet to meet – how we had been friends since junior high, how we shared laughter and heartbreak over bags of Hot Cheetoes throughout high school and college, and how she was now GETTING MARRIED! (She is actually the very first of our group of girlfriends to take the plunge.)

So of course I was ecstatic when she not only asked me to be a bridesmaid, but to do an engagement shoot for her and Yuki. Unfortunately they had a plans for 4 pm on the day we decided to shoot, which meant no pretty afternoon light. So we went for the next best thing: pretty morning light! Which is how we found ourselves at the Santa Monica pier at 7 am on a Saturday morning. Even though I am the antithesis of a morning person, I have to admit the conditions were great – the sun was out so it wasn’t too cold and the beach was not yet full of people. We even had time to drop by UCLA for some fun shots in the Sculpture Garden.

A big thank you to Joyce & Yuki for a wonderful shoot. I can’t wait for the wedding!!

* A couple of the above photos utilize Photoshop actions created and graciously shared by the Furious Photographers!