What. A. Dream! Does anyone else ever feel like they’re witnessing something and almost having an out of body experience. It’s just so beautiful and magical that it couldn’t possibly be real? Well that’s pretty much how I felt throughout Danielle and Jose’s entire engagement session! They originally were between two locations, downtown Albany around Empire Plaza or downtown Troy. We settled on downtown Albany as they’re getting married at 90 State on New Year’s Eve this year! I was excited to photograph them but equally as excited that they chose downtown Albany as it’s one of my most favorite spots to shoot around the capital region!

A couple weeks before their engagement session I sent them a style guide. I do this for all of my clients now and it helps to plan out what to wear for their engagement photos. These two literally could’ve walked out of the guide I sent them because their outfits or 100% on point! And I also feel like it was the perfect balance of showing off their personalities and being a little fancy at the same time!

Before we started, we got chatting a little bit and I asked them if they were nervous. Jose was quick to say yes and that they both felt super awkward in front of the camera. I assured them that it was going to be fine in hopes that they would have a really fun time! I think it’s safe to say that they don’t look awkward whatsoever in any of these pictures.  Plus I think they’re secretly super models!

The whole time I was photographing them I was thinking in my head “oh my gosh this should be in a magazine”! From their fun personalities, killer outfit choices and the perfect location, their engagement session definitely crept up into my top five favorite shoots of all time!

While they changed into their second outfit I borrowed Danielle’s engagement ring for a few photos. She also was wearing another ring on her other hand which was one of the first things Jose ever gave her!! So we definitely had to incorporate that into some pictures as well. How special is that?!

As I was photographing the rings I watched people walk by carrying lawn chairs and heard what sounded like a band playing close by. Then I got thinking. I’m pretty sure there’s a concert happening at the museum in the middle of downtown Albany. I instantly got super worried because I thought that we were not going to be able to shoot in the  Plaza because of the concert.

Luckily the concert didn’t seem to matter whatsoever! There is definitely plenty of spaces for us to go shoot and not as big as a crowd as I was expecting. Thank goodness! These are the types of things that I probably should’ve looked up before hand but definitely forgot. Especially being newer to the area I didn’t think concerts happened in the plaza… Well now I know!

Honestly, I wish I could post every single picture from their engagement sessions because I’m kind of obsessed with them but in a not creepy way!  Here are some of my absolute favorites from their engagement session in downtown Albany!