When we first scheduled our engagement shoot, a million potential themes popped up in my head-A retro shoot, complete with a vintage typewriter, old suitcase and bicycle! A picnic shoot, with a blanket, little macarons and champagne! But none of those ideas felt very "us" or all that meaningful, and to be honest, between work, blogging, and other wedding planning activities, I didn't feel like I could pull together something like that in the amount of time that we had. So I took it back to basics. We decided to do our engagement shoot in our hometown of El Dorado Hills instead of the city, because even though we love San Francisco and our life here, El Dorado Hills is where we met and fell in love (at the ripe old age of 16 and 18).

For our engagement photos, I wanted to choose locations and styles that felt special to us as a couple. I picked out three locations, with the first being at the very spot we met-in front of my locker at Oak Ridge High School. The second spot was an old abandoned barn with a vibrant red door (something I just happened to come across when I was driving around town looking for shoot locations) and the third spot was on Salmon Falls Bridge where we used to go hang out during the summer by the American River.

For outfits, I knew I wanted one fall look with us both in cozy sweaters, and two looks where I wore dresses. I chose one white lace dress with blue stripes because hey, I am a bride-to-be and white lace just feels so appropriate right now. To add a special and meaningful touch to my accessories, I also wore a jade bracelet that Omied got me when we were traveling in Beijing. The second dress was a flowy yellow number that I actually just bought to wear as a bridesmaid dress for my cousin's wedding next year. The dress originally had a sash around the waist, but I replaced it with a beaded belt to make the look a little more glam and a little less "spring maiden." For Omied's look, he wanted to wear his plaid blue and yellow shirt, and in order to keep it from being too matchy-matchy with my yellow dress, he also wore a leather jacket. I loved this touch because when he picked me up for our first date, he wore a similar leather jacket.

And so, without further ado, here are a few more of my absolute favorite shots from our engagement shoot!

I had so much fun finding the perfect locations, outfits, and accessories for our shoot, and I love how our photos turned out. Our photographer, Lyndsay Undseth, was wonderful and I'm so excited for her to shoot our wedding as well! I know the photos are going to turn out gorgeous. Lyndsay also risked her life several times during our shoot just to get the shot. Cars were zooming crazy fast around Salmon Falls Road and we had to dodge in and out of them to get the shots in the middle of the bridge. Fortunately though, we all survived the engagement shoot!

Photos by Lyndsay Undseth