Laura & TJ’s Casual, Fall Park Engagement Session in Virginia

Back this afternoon with a lovely Virginia engagement session from Chris Ferenzi Photography. I feel like Fall came and went entirely too fast this year, and I barely got to enjoy the fall foliage. Luckily for me (well and you!), Chris’ engagement feature is full of gorgeous fall foliage. It also features an adorable couple, Laura & TJ who shared an awesome his and hers love story write-up – including how their relationship, and consequently their proposal, was based on their love of bikes. Oh I also ADORE Laura’s yellow dress in these pictures. What a great color and a perfect compliment to the natural beauty of the park they had their engagement session in. Enjoy!

TJ & Laura’s Casual, Fall Park Engagement Pictures in Virginia

Photography: Chris Ferenzi Photography

How they met (from Laura’s perspective):

We were pseudo-set up but a mutual friend of ours who knew of our mutual love for bikes. This friend claims that she had been telling me about TJ for months and that I eventually came to my senses and decided to go out with him, but I only remember her telling me the once. Our first 10 or so “dates” were bike rides in Philadelphia, with the occasional stop for good food and beer.

On one of our first we went to an annual professional bike race that goes all throughout the City of Philadelphia. There was a little boy sitting in front of us where we were watching who kept trying to play with us with a toy that he had. He would not give up and it was honestly quite annoying to me. TJ, on the other hand, was so interested in playing with him the whole time and never got frustrated by him once. I knew immediately what a kind and patient person he was, and was in love pretty much from day one.

Click inside for the rest of TJ & Laura’s beautiful Fall engagement session and proposal story!

The proposal story, from TJ:

Anyone who knows the history of “Sidge and Tidge” knows that bikes have been a huge part of our relationship; our first dozen or so “dates” were on bike rides or otherwise directly involving bikes. Naturally, then, a proposal involving a bike ride was the obvious way to ask Laura to marry me. The ring is a blend of our families: diamonds from her mother’s ring and the gold and band pattern from a brooch of my grandmother. With the ring still in the box, stuffed into the back pocket of my cycling jersey, I made sure Laura would ride in front of me the whole way to Mount Vernon from her apartment in Alexandria on a beautiful, warm late-May morning so that she wouldn’t get any ideas from the obvious cube in my back pocket.

We stopped for a water and snack break at the Mount Vernon Park, to my irritation amidst a crowd of school kids on a field trip. Once the crowd started to clear, we sat together and started to talk about the difficulties of the past year, being geographically apart, and what we both wanted from the coming years. Although I don’t remember the exact dialogue, as we were talking, I went for the ring and asked Laura something along the lines of if she would “marry me so that we could start our life together.” She said yes, of course, and we spent a while smiling at each other and asking random tourists to take our picture. The ride back to Alexandria was my favorite and most memorable ride with Laura to date. She kept looking at her left hand and then over at me, with the biggest smile.

After the ride back to Alexandria, we celebrated with a post-proposal baseball game and dinner in Old Town. The Phillies played (and lost to) the Nationals, a match up that we had talked about watching ever since Laura moved to DC to start PA school a year before. A perfect end to a perfect day, a glimpse into the life of a couple that couldn’t be happier than when we’re together.

^What an AWESOME proposal story!

Congratulations TJ & Laura! Thank you for sharing your beautiful love story and proposal with us! A special thanks again to Chris Ferenzi Photography for sharing his images for today’s Virginia engagement session feature.

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