Emilie + Mike – Engagement
Sometimes, in the hubbub (yes, I said hubbub) of our everyday work lives at OLAS, we’ll get an email, or a phone call, or even a Facebook message that will stop us all in our tracks and remind us of why we do what we do. The wedding photography world is a fast-paced, exciting one – we love that we get to spend all day every day looking at amazing details, gorgeous gowns, and stunning couples portraits. When it comes down to it, though, wedding photography really and truly is about capturing the core of a relationship. It’s about capturing images that display to the world the essence of two people and the beautiful way they are able to relate to each other, and make each other laugh, and just plain old love each other. Images are powerful – they let us revisit that emotion at times when we might need it most, and that’s why we are SO blessed to have been able to shoot Emilie and Mike’s engagement session. When Emilie contacted us, she and Mike were planning a wedding as he was preparing to leave for Iraq in just a few short weeks. Luckily, we were able to quickly squeeze in an engagement session with these two with our amazing photog Leslie in Nashville. The best part, though, is that Emilie and Mike were able to view their photos the day before he left for his tour of duty. We received the email below from Emilie, and we can’t explain how much it means to us. Thank you Emilie and Mike, not only for your commitment and sacrifice to our country and our freedom, but for reminding all of us why we love what we do. xoxo
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Dear Lauren, Ashley, Leah, Cali, and Leslie,
Thank you so SO much for our pictures. They are beyond gorgeous, and we couldn’t be more pleased!!! Y’all did an amazing job… Each picture seems to positively overflow with love, laughter, and joy–a perfect expression of our relationship at its best, and the fantastic time we had shooting the pictures with Leslie (Hi Leslie! You did such a brilliant job! YAY!).
Today has been a really hard day, so I wanted to be sure to thank all of you a little bit extra. While we would have been excited to see our engagement pictures at any point in time, receiving them yesterday was truly a blessing because Mike deployed to Iraq today. It was so wonderful to be able to look at them together, to remember such a wonderful day in our history, and to think about how much we are looking forward to our life together as husband and wife after this deployment is over. Y’all did more than give us beautiful photographs (although, don’t get me wrong, y’all did an amazing job with that aspect as well!)–y’all gave us a respite from our circumstances at present, and a renewed focus on our future. I cannot thank y’all enough for that… Looking at our photographs made our last day together so very special and much easier–you helped us to see the positive instead of all of the negative.
Furthermore, the response we’ve already received from friends and family regarding our engagement pictures has been extraordinary. I think that people have been so touched by the pictures because y’all really managed to capture both who we are as individuals, and what makes our relationship work. We have received so much support, so many prayers, and have been blessed in so many ways today just because people were touched by the images y’all captured and edited.
Thank you all so very much for making time to take our pictures… For taking such wonderful, gorgeous pictures… For editing them so brilliantly… For setting them to snazzy music… For being such a joy to work with… And for blessing us with your talent. I can’t possibly say thank you enough.
We can’t wait to work with y’all again to create our wedding pictures… I can only imagine how gorgeous they will be!
Many thanks again,
Emilie Duck
P.S. Mike said to be sure to let y’all know that he plans to have a few of the engagement pictures up in his tent in Iraq–talk about taking your business global 
