Fun engagement portraits with the dogs at Vereen Memorial Gardens

This was my first time taking engagement portraits at the Vereen Memorial Historical Gardens in Little River, SC. This area has a lot of hiking trails and boardwalks over the salt marshes. It is located right next to the Intracoastal Waterway. This couple wanted to bring their two dogs to the engagement pictures so it’s great that the Vereen Memorial Gardens is very dog friendly. We saw a lot of people walking around with their pets. I wasn’t very familiar with this location, so we started out the session walking around a bit with the dogs and finding some great spots for pictures. Of course the dogs didn’t mind this at all. I especially liked a picture I got of the dogs on a bench backlit by the sunset. They were both looking directly at the camera! It takes a whole lot of tries and making silly noises to get dogs to do this.

After doing some more pictures with the dogs, their Grandma came to take them home while I did pictures with just the couple. We started out doing some pictures in the wooded area while we waited for the sun to drop a bit. The couple had an oak tree with branches hanging out over the water that they loved, so even though it was a little muddy, I got some nice shots of the two of them sitting on the tree. As the sun went down, we found a marsh boardwalk that was backlit by the sunlight filtering through the leaves of the oak trees. I always love getting out of focus sunlight filtering through the trees. I especially like the closeup of the couple kissing. The closer you get to a subject, the more the background will blur, so I got some amazing bokeh from the sunlight in the background.

As the sun got low in the sky, we went down by the Intracoastal Waterway for pictures. We started out doing some romantic pictures of the couple surrounded by the marsh grass. There was a slight hill overlooking the marsh grass and river that was covered with white oyster shells. This made a great background for pictures of the couple sitting together. Finally, as the sun set, we did some pictures on the oyster covered riverbank. I really liked using the Vereen Memorial Gardens for engagement pictures. If someone wants a location away from the beach, with more of a woods and marsh look, I’m going to recommend this to future clients. If you want to set up your own engagement session please let me know!