Jessica and Daniel’s story spans over 2 decades and 2 states. but really begins when Daniel was living here in LA. They have built their life together here in LA so it seemed only fitting that they have a Malibu engagement session.

How they met:

Their families have known each other for over 20 years, but Jessica and Daniel didn’t really start spending time together until 2013 when their parents “re-introduced” them. Daniel was living in LA and Jessica was in Tuscon, Arizona.

 

After several months of casually chatting, Daniel asked Jessica to meet him out for a drink while he was in town visiting his parents. They met at Union Public House in Tucson. Jessica said when she walked in he was sitting with a girl and she remembers feeling crushed that he brought a girl which was when she knew this could be “something”…turns out it was his cousin! They had drinks and went downtown where his cousin left them to meet up with friends. They spent the rest of the night dancing and bar hopping and then spent the rest of the weekend together.

 

A few days after he went back to LA, Jessica found flowers on her doorstep with a plane ticket to visit him the following weekend. They’ve been inseparable ever since.

 

 

How he proposed:

Daniel proposed while they were on vacation. They had taken the PCH from San Francisco to LA and were on a stop in Big Sur (if you’ve never been to Big Sur, add it to your bucket list – it is GORGEOUS!) when he asked Jessica if she wanted a picture of them together. He asked a couple to take their photo and next thing she knew, he had gotten down on one knee! The couple taking pictures (luckily) went all paparazzi on them, so they have a ton of great pictures of the proposal!

 

Their Session:

When Jessica and I were talking about their session, we knew it had to include the beach. Jessica and Daniel live here in LA and spend a lot of their time near the beach. She also let me have freedom of picking the location (!!). We had just had the fires in Malibu and many of my favorite locations had unfortunately burned. I found Malibu Bluffs Park thanks to the recommendation of a co-worker. It was luckily untouched by the fires and was a perfect spot to have their engagement session!

We started up on the cliffs. Jessica and Daniel were troopers! It was FREEZING (by LA standards!) and super windy (by any standards!). Somehow they made it look like it was sunny and 75!

 

Jessica and Daniel were so much fun – I would shout random things at them (pick her up! Spin!) and they would go for it.

 

We moved down into one of the canyons to get out of the wind for a bit. As we were walking, we ran into Zeus, an Alaskan Malamute and he was ready to be the star of the show!

 

We were heading out to go to the beach found this lovely spot. I’d venture to say it was my favorite spot from their session!

 

 

Jessica really wanted to finish with some sunset portraits on the beach so we headed to Malibu Lagoon. It was absolutely worth braving the cold!

 

 

 

Thank you so much, Jessica and Daniel, for sharing your story with me. I really enjoyed capturing your Malibu engagement session and I can’t wait to photograph your wedding in October!