Today we are sharing Emma and Tom’s engagement session that we just shot here in Richmond, Virginia, at one of our favorite venues – Tredegar.

Tredegar is a historic museum.  A museum, a historic site, and a wedding venue all put into one.

It’s funny because we shoot at Tredegar all the time (see some other sessions here and here) and I’ve never actually been into the museum.  They are renovating and doing different things so it is probably different than what you may have seen if you’ve been there years ago.

We often use Tredegar as a second spot. Like a back up to add variety when we go to places like Belle Isle or the T-Pott bridge. We can use the cool brick and architecture that Tredegar has to add something different to the shoot.

It was cool because Emma and Tom are getting married at Tredegar. Because of that, they wanted to spend a lot of time there. So it’s nice that we got to explore this place that we shoot at a lot, but typically don’t get to spend a lot of time at.

A lot of variety there. So other than the brick they have a new building with a clean lock with glass panes. The little purple flowery field section.

Where we shot first which I think is what you’re talking about.  It is actually in front of the museum entrance.  The flat clean glass sleek and modern building and then it has the ruins of the brick building right in front. It’s a really pretty arch to be able to walk into the museum. We have never shot there and that was one of my favorite spots.

They also are doing renovations on another part of the building with these giant black doors. If you think of a photo at Tredegar, it’s probably from right there.

The ceremony spot for where to people typically get married at Tredegar.  They have painted the doors and it looks really nice and clean.

Emma showed up in a beautiful dress which I think she was initially a little worried about. We sent an email about what to wear for engagement sessions. Send an email about helping to pick out outfits which is one of the hardest parts of an engagement session. And one of the things that I recommend is to avoid certain colors because it can create color casts on your skin. So like a bright red dress is probably not a great idea because it could show up on your skin tone in certain lights.

So Emma showed up and asked if her dress was OK. And oh my gosh it was gorgeous.  Actually Emma if you could send me the link to that dress I kind of wanna purchase it. It was just stunning.

Another thing that typically happens at engagement sessions is that at about halfway through we will switch to another outfit.  So we kept talking about when we should switch to their second outfit. But they were like you know what we could just stay in this. So we did almost all of their session in that first outfit.

And then at the very end it started to drizzle a little bit. So they swapped into a more casual outfit. We did a few more at the T-Pott bridge when it was getting pretty dark.

I think Emma and Tom’s outfits were one of my all-time favorites. For an engagement session.

So Emma and Tom first met at Virginia Tech. Yeah Hokies.  Tom kept checking his phone throughout the engagement session because there was a big football game happening.

What was funny is that Emma commented, “I hope they turn it around, because otherwise the rest of these photos are not going to be as happy”. It would be all downhill from here.

They were a wonderful couple. It was great being able to spend a little bit more time with them. (One of the reasons we love engagement sessions.) Enjoy a few of our favorites from their engagement session. Congrats you guys!