South Carolina Botanical Gardens Engagement | Ashley and David
David and Ashley met through mutual friends on World of Warcraft. They began talking more during the pandemic and eventually started seeing each other in person. After working on a cruise line for several years, Ashley decided to move to South Carolina, where David lived. David proposed to Ashley at Caesars Head State Park, one of my favorite places in the whole state! He used her mom’s engagement ring, which I think is so beautiful and sentimental.
After spending so many years seeing the world, Ashley has enjoyed exploring South Carolina with David. When Ashley and I were talking about places to take engagement photos, she specifically mentioned how she loved the South Carolina Botanical Gardens in Clemson. This is one of my favorite places to take photos because everything changes throughout the year, so it pretty much looks different every time I go and I’m always finding new spots to use. This was in early summer, so there was so much green and plenty of color! It was hot at the beginning of the session, but as the sun got lower, the golden hour light looked so beautiful coming through the tree leaves. Between all the green trees, colorful flowers, and the plants in the desert garden, we had the best scenery and light for summer engagement photos. Ashley had a red scarf that coordinated with David’s red shirt, which made for some cool veil-like photos and contrasted beautifully with the green cacti and succulents in the desert garden!
I had an awesome time with Ashley and David on this summer evening and can’t wait to be part of their wedding this December! Enjoy some of my favorite photos from their summery engagement session in the South Carolina Botanical Gardens!
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Clemson Engagement | Sidney and Hayden
On Memorial Day weekend, Sidney and Hayden made a long weekend trip to Clemson University, where their story together began.
Hayden was originally planning to propose on Saturday, but since there was a high chance of rain and the forecast for Friday was perfect, we decided to make the proposal a day earlier. A walk through the South Carolina Botanical Gardens included a surprise proposal at the pier over the duck pond. Hayden’s brother took photos with a Polaroid and I pretended to take photos of the turtles in the pond until the proposal actually happened. The other people walking and the ducks happened to clear out right when it happened, but we heard the ducks quacking loudly after the proposal, like they had known to keep quiet and then started cheering with us. We worked our way around the garden until we reached the entrance, where the palmetto trees are. We went down to the geology museum so we could get a few photos in the desert garden too!
Legend has it that any couple who walks hand-in-hand through President’s Park is destined to be together forever, so we had to go take some pictures there. From there, we took a few photos around the central part of campus, like Sikes Hall and the Reflection Pond, as the sun went down. One thing I love about Clemson couples is that we have so many stories to share as we walk around campus. It’d been a long time since I had a Clemson couple whose time at Clemson overlapped with mine, so they remembered things like Clemson House and the time there was a duck in the Reflection Pond.
Check out some of my favorite photos from Sidney and Hayden’s Clemson engagement photos in the South Carolina Botanical Gardens!
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Miss Clemson University 2023 | Hannah
A few weeks ago, I photographed the Miss Clemson University pageant for the 7th year. Hannah was crowned after a super impressive and unique violin performance to Dueling Banjoes and an evening gown presentation worthy of the evening gown award!
Since the pageant was so late in the school year, the semester was over by the time we had her portraits, which is great because the campus was so empty and quiet. I could have her stand in the road in front of the stadium without blocking traffic, and there weren’t a lot of people in the background. This was my first portrait session at Clemson since the stadium’s new scoreboard was finished, and that thing is HUGE! After taking photos here for so many years, I had to find some new angles to show off the scenery here. We were lucky to have a PERFECT spring evening, even though it usually gets hot by this time of year.
The gown that Hannah used for this session was a Sherri Hill gown, sponsored by Dressing Dreams. The purple was fitting for Clemson, and a skirt that big looked amazing on the steps of Sikes Hall! She wore a much shorter orange dress for some of our other photos, and we were so lucky to have the fountains in the Reflection Pond turned on that day, even if they weren’t as high as they normally are.
Here are a few of my favorite photos from Hannah’s portraits as Miss Clemson University! I had such a fun time with her and I hope you love the photos!
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Pendleton, SC Proposal | Maggie and Spencer
Spencer and Maggie began dating when they were seniors in high school. When Spencer went to Clemson, he had a pretty busy baseball schedule, so it was easier for Maggie to visit him. They loved getting brunch together at the Village Café in downtown Pendleton.
Maggie and Spencer came to Clemson for baseball opening weekend. Spencer told Maggie that they would be meeting friends for brunch in Pendleton before they left on Sunday, so she would have to wear something nice. They parked their car and walked across the green in front of the 1826 Bistro, right across from the Village Café. Spencer got down on one knee, and of course Maggie said yes! Luckily, I didn’t look too suspicious sitting on the bench right in front of the green, and I got photos of the whole thing!
When I talked to Spencer beforehand, he said that he and Maggie knew they wanted to get married, but that she didn’t know anything about his plan to propose, so she was totally surprised when he did. He said Maggie hadn’t told him what she wanted in an engagement ring, but he knew what she would like. He was right because Maggie said the ring was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen!
I asked them if they wanted to take a few other photos somewhere else in the area and suggested the South Carolina Botanical Gardens. We get some blooming trees in late February, so I figured something had to be in bloom in the gardens. Maggie said they used to take walks through there when she would come visit. The first bit of color we found was a tree with pink buds on it. I suggested taking a photo of Maggie’s ring on one of the buds, and she liked the idea because pink is her favorite color. We walked a little further and found a tree with some white blossoms too.
Check out a few of my favorites from Maggie and Spencer’s engagement!
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Clemson Bridal Portraits in South Carolina Botanical Gardens | Brittany
Brittany and I met at a wedding expo in February of 2020. It was only a few weeks after she got engaged, and a few weeks before the world turned upside-down, which made it hard to set dates for anything in stone. We eventually scheduled her bridal portraits a week after her Clemson graduation portraits. She totally lucked out on the weather—about 70 degrees and partly cloudy both days!
We started Brittany’s bridal portraits at the South Carolina Botanical Gardens, which is technically part of Clemson’s campus. I love doing sessions here because it’s such a rabbit hole—there are obvious places that are pretty, but there are little pockets of hidden gems everywhere. Since Clemson has so many different majors involving plants and wildlife, it’s no surprise that there’s so much diversity in the garden and it changes so much throughout the year. On this beautiful day in May, the gardens didn’t have the pink and white blooms that it had when I did a session here in March, but there were some colorful flowers that weren’t there before, and a lot more green overall. The garden was so quiet and peaceful, with the occasional splash in the pond or rustle through the bushes. We caught the scents of different blossoms as we walked down the trail, including something that smelled like bubblegum!
I loved that Brittany’s veil complemented her ruffly dress so well, and bridal headbands are some of my favorite accessories! She found her dress at The Castle in Spartanburg. She said she loved having another opportunity to wear everything—she loved feeling like a bride and she could know a few weeks before the wedding day how her whole ensemble felt. She was so smiley the whole session!
Brittany also wanted to have some of her bridal portraits at Clemson’s main campus, since it’s become such a special place to her and held a significant role in her relationship with her now-husband. She wanted some pictures with Tillman Hall/Old Main, since she’s an education major and that’s where most of her classes are. We spent a good amount of time at Sikes Hall, which both of us love. I thought she looked like Cinderella in some of the photos we took on the steps at Sikes!
I’m so happy to have met Brittany and I’ve loved getting to know her at both her graduation session and her bridal portraits. Check out a few of my favorites that I’ve been dying to share!
Are you thinking about having photos done at Clemson? Click here to check out some of my favorite galleries from Clemson, including wedding, engagement, graduation, and pageant photos! To schedule a session, fill out my contact form to tell me all about it!
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South Carolina Botanical Gardens Engagement Photos | Courtney and David
My cousin Courtney came to visit with her fiancé, David! They live in Maryland and stopped in South Carolina on their way to Universal Studios. We set a date for spring engagement photos in the South Carolina Botanical Gardens and crossed our fingers that it wouldn’t rain in the short time that they were here.
Courtney and David met while David was studying abroad at a university near where Courtney lives. They kept a long-distance relationship while David finished school in the Netherlands. David came back to Maryland for graduate school and Courtney has visited the Netherlands with him twice now. They plan to be married next summer in Maryland, then have another reception with David’s family and friends in the Netherlands.
I had told Courtney that we’d find at least something in bloom by their engagement photos, since there’s such a variety of plants in the Botanical Gardens that bloom at different times. I like to think everything bloomed early here just for them. We were so excited when we left my neighborhood and saw a long row of white trees, which doesn’t normally happen this early in the spring. That meant that the gardens had to be full of color, and they were! There was so much pink to go with Courtney’s pink hair, lipstick, and dresses. It was cloudy most of the time we were there, but the temperature was perfect.
A few of my favorite things about this session include the design on Courtney’s nails (which you can see in some of the closeups), her Harry Potter dress in front of the caboose, and how amazing her hair and makeup looked—shoutout to Leigh and Meagan at Cotton Rouge for doing such an amazing job with that!
Check out all the pretty colors and laughter from Courtney and David’s engagement session!
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Clemson Elopement | Katie and Matt
Katie and Matt knew they wanted their wedding day to be unique and intimate. A year and a half after I did Katie’s Clemson graduation portraits, she told me they were planning to elope and asked if I could do their wedding photos. Since so much of Matt and Katie’s story takes place around Clemson, it felt like a perfect fit for them. They said they shared a lot of memories at the amphitheater, so we made a plan for them to get married there on New Year’s Eve.
Katie, Matt, and I met up at the amphitheater with my friend Rebecca of A Different Officiant. Since it was New Year’s Eve, there weren’t hardly any people around, and only the bells of the clock tower broke the silence around them. Even though there was a high chance of rain for the whole day, none came down while we were together! We went through so much of campus that day, even through some of the botanical gardens. Since there were no guests, Katie and Matt could spend their wedding day wherever. They popped a bottle of champagne together on Bowman Field, which made for plenty of laughs as it sprayed everywhere. They even cut their wedding cake right in front of Death Valley!
Katie and Matt spent years walking this campus with no idea that they were passing by the place where they would someday get married. This was such a fun day that was totally centered around them and their story. Check out some of my favorite photos from Katie and Matt’s wedding!
Special thanks to Rebecca Inman of A Different Officiant for making it possible for Katie and Matt to get married in a place that was so special to them. Their cake came from Sugar Mama’s Cakes and Desserts in Seneca.
Ready to have a wedding ceremony that’s super intimate and totally unique to you? I’d love to help you make that happen!
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Clemson Proposal | AC and Ben
This proposal has been in the works for 2 months now. Ben originally wanted to propose to AC on the day of the Clemson spring game. The pandemic came, the game was cancelled, and we heard people were being escorted off campus. We reconvened a few weeks later and set a new date. Ben organized a weekend trip to the mountains and would pass through Clemson on the way back.
Ben always knew he wanted to propose at the spot where they first met—outside of Core Campus, near the stadium. It was a quiet day on campus with only a few people passing through. He pulled up to their special spot and they walked down the steps. After they talked briefly about how that was where they met, Ben pulled something out of his backpack and got down on one knee. AC said she was completely caught off guard, but in the next few minutes, she found out that there was a lot more to this plan than she realized. Ben had gotten coordinating face masks off of Etsy just for these photos. He brought his Clemson ring in his backpack because she knew he didn’t normally wear it and he wanted to have it for the photos. AC’s family would be waiting for her at their lake house. Her friends had even suggested getting their nails done together a few days earlier!
We took some pictures around campus, and even though we got tired and sweaty, there was so much joy. As I walked behind them and took pictures, I kept overhearing AC:
“WE’RE ENGAGED!”
“They knew?”
“She did?”
“WE’RE GETTING MARRIED!”
Check out some of my favorite photos from this special day!
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Unique Ideas for Clemson Engagement Photos
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I shoot a lot at Clemson. It makes sense, considering I graduated from there and my husband and I had our proposal, engagement session, and wedding there! I’ve shot there in every season and can tell you what trees to look for in January, April, and November. Want pictures inside Death Valley? I know when it’s open to the public. If you want a ring shot in purple and orange flowers, I know where and when to do that. If there’s a building on campus that’s special to you, there’s a good chance I’ve taken pictures of someone there before. While I have a general outline that I follow with all the essentials—Tillman, Sikes, Reflection Pond, Carillon Bell, and outside of Death Valley—every session is unique and there are different parts of campus that mean something to different people. Here are some of my favorite places on campus that you might not have thought about.
Daniel Hall
I spent so much time in this building as an undergrad and considered it one of the ugliest buildings on campus. I had no desire to have my graduation pictures there. At some point, though, I realized how much I love the ivy and the lattice outside one of the entrances.
Downtown Clemson
The place where you probably hung out on Friday nights and watched a lot of away games together on Saturdays.
Botanical Gardens
This one gets its own post so you can see all the beautiful places in it and how it looks at different seasons! One thing I love about Clemson is how well you can see the hard work of the staff and students who study plants. I always find something new when I visit the Botanical Gardens! I was born in Arizona and I have a soft spot for cacti and succulents, so we’re lucky to have a spot with them here in South Carolina. Also, how gorgeous is this pier?
President’s Park
This one may seem obvious because of the legend behind it, but do you know what else makes this the perfect place for a proposal? Since it’s one of the only places on campus with an outdoor covered area, you can still plan to be there whether or not it’s raining. Here are some pictures from proposals I shot on a sunny and an on-and-off rainy day. Also, the bushes bloom so beautifully there in April!
Places Outside Death Valley
As much as I love the days when the stadium is open to the public, it’s only at certain times, so I have to get creative with what to do at the other times. The porch of Stadium Suites gives you the whole stadium in the background and I love the view you can get from outside some of the gates!
Lake Hartwell
Since Lake Hartwell is not part of the main campus, it’s easy to forget about. If it’s cold outside, nobody will be at the lake, making for a more intimate and peaceful session. The reason I love the rowing center is because of the paw on the docks, but the lake is accessible from some of the off-campus apartment complexes as well.
Lee Hall
I was surprised nobody had ever asked me for a session here because I think this building is so cool! I thought it’d be even cooler if we went after the sun went down and creatively used some flashes.
Sunflowers
It’s amazing to me how much I’ve discovered that I used to walk or drive past all the time. In the summer, the sunflowers at the student organic farm are nice and tall. You can even color coordinate with them like Tori and Michael did!
Sikes Hall
It’s not exactly overlooked, but it’s one of my favorite places on campus to take pictures. Not only do I love the steps and pillars here, it becomes one of my favorite backgrounds when it gets cold. When the tree in front of Tillman loses its leaves, you get Sikes and Tillman in the same picture.
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Botanical Gardens
Campus, Lake Hartwell
Lake Hartwell, Esso, Stadium
Campus, Harts Cove
President’s Park Proposal
Botanical Gardens, Lee Hall
Desert Garden, Sunflowers
Proposal at Core Campus
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South Carolina Botanical Gardens and Clemson University Engagement | Presley and Logan
April
This engagement session is for an extra special couple. When Dan and I were at Clemson, we were part of Alpha Phi Omega, or APO, the service fraternity. Dan’s assigned little was a pledge named Logan, who quickly became one of our closest friends. Eventually, Logan was assigned a little, a pledge named Presley. Logan and Presley quickly became friends and eventually became a couple later that year.
APO formal is traditionally when each new member presents their big with a paddle they’ve decorated and each big presents their newly-initiated little with a stitched letter shirt. Presley was unable to attend formal in April, so she and her little planned to do the exchange a few days later. Her little, Hannah, suggested it might be fun to wear dresses and do the exchange somewhere pretty on campus and take some pictures. Presley wanted to come up with another plan when the forecast said it would rain, but Hannah convinced her that they could go to President’s Park and take cover under the rotunda if they needed to. As another APO brother took their pictures of them on his phone in front of the rotunda, he told Presley to turn around. She turned around and thought he was telling her to get out of the way of someone’s pictures, not realizing that the person with the camera was me with my hood on and that I was actually there to take pictures of her. He told Presley to turn around again, where she saw Logan, who had told her he was at work. He got down on one knee with the ring and Presley said yes!
November
Fast forward to a few minutes after Clemson beat South Carolina for the sixth year straight. It was the last day of November, but none of us were cold. Presley and Logan had chosen outfits that fit the location perfectly as it transitioned from fall to winter. We met up in the South Carolina Botanical Gardens for the first part of their session. We had JUST missed the peak foliage, but there was still plenty of fall color for us to find in the gardens. I loved the way the leaves on the ground added to the whole atmosphere. The new pier at the duck pond is so pretty and we had to get some pictures with it! I picked up all sorts of things that had fallen on the ground to set up for their ring shots. We then did a quick run through the main campus until the sun went down. After the sun went down, we headed over to Lee Hall to see what we could do with those huge glass windows at night.
Check out some of my favorites from this beautiful day!
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Clemson University Engagement | Ann and Joe
I first met Ann on the night of Miss Clemson University in 2017. It was my first time as the pageant photographer and Ann was one of the pageant co-directors. A few months later, I did Ann’s graduation portraits around campus. As we were talking that day, we found out that she and I are both from Virginia and her sister-in-law now teaches at my high school!
Ann and Joe met while they were students at Clemson. While they were at a brewery in Virginia (about 45 minutes from where I grew up), Joe proposed in front of a beautiful view of the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains. Isn’t the band on her ring so pretty?
Since Clemson is where so much of Ann and Joe’s story takes place, it only made sense for them to have their engagement photos there! We met on the first weekend in November, right when the leaves started to change. We started at Lake Hartwell, which was silent on this cool fall morning, making this part of the session so peaceful and intimate. We progressed to the Esso Club, a popular spot in downtown Clemson, especially to watch away games. They were in town for the weekend to see a home game, meaning that if we did the session the next day, we could go into the stadium. We hit all the iconic parts of campus and got some pretty yellow trees around Sikes Hall and President’s Park. I will always love an engagement ring with two Clemson rings, especially with Ann’s gorgeous engagement ring and some of the first leaves from this fall.
Check out some of my favorite photos of Ann and Joe from this gorgeous fall morning around Clemson! We’re so lucky to have such a gorgeous campus to use for commemorating our stories.
Clemson Proposal and Engagement | Tracy and Lawrence
Every once in a while, my friend Tracy will ask me about doing a session with her. She was Miss Clemson University, then she graduated from Clemson twice, and we’ve done a few just for fun. This time, it was Lawrence reaching out, telling me he was planning to propose to Tracy and he wanted me to be there.
Tracy and Lawrence had come back to South Carolina for a wedding. Lawrence caught the garter. They headed to Clemson for Sunday brunch and took a walk around campus. They walked through President’s Park, where the superstition says you’ll be together forever if you walk through there holding hands. The two of them walked hand-in-hand down the path until Lawrence stopped and got down on one knee. I wasn’t actually close enough to hear him pop the question, but I saw a long hug and a kiss. After Lawrence told Tracy to turn around to see me in the bushes (not being sketchy at all), I pointed out the tape I had put on the ground for Lawrence to stop. We went inside so they could be in the air conditioning and share the news with their parents.
Lawrence had perfectly coordinated his outfit to complement the dress Tracy had packed, knowing there would be an engagement session that day. Since it’s summer, we had the campus almost to ourselves. We went back to President’s Park so I could take pictures of them actually walking through it, since I was behind a bush until the end of the first walk. We came back through all the places where I’d done Tracy’s pictures for Miss Clemson University and her graduation years before. The fountains were on at the reflection pond, which always makes the pictures there look cooler.
These two made a 95-degree session at 11 AM so worth it! Check out some of my favorites!
Clemson Engagement Session | Lindsay and Tim
Lindsay and Tim met through the engineering program at Clemson. They became friends when they both had their engineering co-op with the same company and they started dating not long after that. For their first date, they went paddle boarding on Lake Hartwell, right outside their apartment community. While they were on a ski trip to Colorado, Tim proposed to Lindsay on a horse-drawn carriage! How sweet is that?
Since Clemson is such a special place for Lindsay and Tim, they decided that was where they wanted to do their engagement photos. They came down from Charlotte with their sweet puppy, Ray. We started down by the stadium and worked our way through the main part of campus. Since legend has it that walking hand-in-hand through President’s Park guarantees that you’ll be together forever, it’s pretty much a milestone in any Clemson couple’s relationship, and we had to get some pictures in there. This session wouldn’t have been complete without going to Harts Cove and taking some pictures at the docks on Lake Hartwell, where they had their first date.
Since the students were on spring break, the campus was nearly silent for a Friday evening, making this session more peaceful and intimate. It was the perfect spring day; the temperature was in the upper 60s, the sky was clear, the trees were pink and white, and there were so many colorful flowers in front of Tillman Hall. The bigger trees were still bare enough for that glow you only see in the winter, and to show Tillman Hall in the background when we were at Sikes Hall.
Enjoy the photos from this beautiful spring evening! I can’t wait for their fall wedding in the mountains!
To see more Clemson engagement sessions and other work I’ve done around there, visit my Clemson page.
Clemson University Engagement Session with Cacti and Sunflowers: Tori and Michael
Tori and Michael first met at governor’s school and became friends when they became counselors for the governor’s school summer camp program. After they both graduated from Clemson with engineering degrees, Michael proposed to Tori on a cruise to the Caribbean.
Since so much of Tori and Michael’s story took place at Clemson, that’s where we went for their engagement photos. I've done lots of sessions at Clemson and even had my own engagement photos there, but I love how every session I've had there shows a different part of campus that each person wants to look back on. We didn’t just take photos around campus, we went into the botanical gardens and the student organic farm as well. There’s a section of the botanical garden with all desert plants, so until we moved to the grassier areas with palmetto trees, it would be hard to tell we were in South Carolina if you weren’t there to feel the humidity. With a high of 84 degrees that day, it was even hard to remember that it was July. Although their clothes got caught on the cacti a few times before we came up with a new plan for where to stand, I’m happy to say that the only time anyone got pricked was when I set up the shot of Tori’s ring on top of a cactus with a flat top and little tiny spines around it. Luckily, I didn’t really feel them and they came out pretty easily.
I thought the outfits Tori and Michael chose were awesome and looked amazing against some of the plants in the area. Their first outfit complemented the colors of the desert garden so beautifully. They coordinated their second outfit with the sunflower field in mind, using their matching yellow Converses to complement the sunflowers and stand out from their black and white outfits.
Here are some of my favorites from this Arizona/South Carolina/summer-feeling session! I had a lot of fun with these two and I can’t wait to be part of their wedding day!
Clemson University Engagement Session: Diana and Andrew
One day at Clemson, Andrew and Diana walked hand-in-hand through President's Park. Andrew did not know at the time that superstition says that means they'll be together forever. This time, they held hands and danced through the park, knowing their wedding day will be here before they know it.
I've done lots of portrait sessions around Clemson, and I had my proposal, engagement, and wedding pictures at Clemson, but this was my first time shooting an engagement session at Clemson, so this one holds a special place in my heart. It was also my first time doing a session in January; I don't know what colors are the most festive for January, but I'm pretty sure that Diana and Andrew wore them for the session, and Diana’s purple coat is so perfect for a session at Clemson. At such a cold time of year, there were no leaves on the trees to hide some of the buildings on the main part of campus, so Tillman Hall could be in the background of our photo from the steps of Sikes Hall and the photo of Diana’s yellow-gold and sapphire engagement ring. Diana has been on Clemson’s rowing team all four years of college, so we took some pictures down at the lake on the dock with a tiger paw painted on it. With a high of 37 degrees that day, we couldn’t see or hear any people or boats, making it a peaceful time for Diana and Andrew to snuggle up in a blanket on the dock and watch the sun go down over the water.
Here are some of my personal favorite photos from Diana and Andrew's engagement session. After having so much fun with them at their session, I'm even more excited now to be part of their wedding day!
