Two vintage records collections, two cute puppies, one cozey home and two amazingly adorable people who call it home. Everyone, meet Erin & Wes! Today's blog post is all about their unique love story (as told by Wes). We met up with Erin & Wes at their super gorgeous Grant Park home for a bit of an in-home session. What's a better way to start off their engagement pictures than with an activity they both enjoy? Music and each other in the comfort of their own home. As they say, live authentic!
Whether it's from the record player in their living room or the organ next to their kitchen, their home is always filled with music. Each of them has their very own vintage record collection. And while they share the same shelf, the collections have yet to be officially combined... until their wedding day. Christlyn and I just thought it was such a beautiful metaphor!
HOW THEY MET "There was a costume party that I was invited to in the Virginia Highlands. I dressed in an all black suit and I had black oil paint across my eyes like some sort of Zorro meets Darryl Hannah of Blade Runner type ghetto fashion mask...folks labeled me "bandit". I met, mingled, and was complimentary of most of the people - meaning, I was happy to be there and having a pretty darn good time. I was single then. And amongst the bevy of women there - there was only one..only one woman caught my eye. I saw her for a second and then she disappeared. I continued to mingle, but all the while wondered where the hell this girl had gone. Well, I didn't know that the future love of my life was absolutely this shy. She was dressed as Medusa. She had this beautiful black and tattered dress on with this long flowing brown/black Algonquin hair and little plastic snakes strategically messed into it. Plus these amazing shoes. I was immediately struck by her beauty..her ill begotten shyness and my overwhelming curiosity to meet and know her. Well, to meet her I had to knock on a strangers bedroom door and ask if she was in there. And she was. She was avoiding the meeting, the mingling, and was instead in the bedroom with the various dogs that had been put up to avoid jumping and things dogs do at parties. I asked her "would you like to take a picture together?" You see, the host had set up her cannon camera with this blood splattered sheet as a backdrop and you could sit there in front of the eye of the camera with a remote and could take pictures. She said yes...like Adrien from Rocky shy, but THANK God - yes.....and sitting there saying nothing and not even smiling, but just looking the part...that was the first time we knew without saying anything that our two energies just silently intertwined....God she was Gorgeous and have mercy on me she was hot.
Time goes by.....
We were different people... and honestly at first, I thought she was a total square. But then we got in her car and we were heading to a date I had set up which involved - sitting on the train tracks having a cocktail and picnic - pretty much being eaten alive by chiggers. Going to southern comfort - an old school honky tonk- and slow dancing to Alan Jackson and that diamond rio song meet in the middle ... (aside..we lived on each side of grant park atlanta ga and actually met in the middle under an old oak tree on one of our first dates as well) But the point is...in her car on the ride she had cds in her Volvo cd changer. We listened to the magnetic fields- she played and said she loved "papa was a rodeo" - one of my all time favorite songs...then neutral milk hotel...and with the train tracks and our silent energies dancing like sprites all around us...I immediately knew. She was one of a kind. Not a square. An absolute phenomenon. She was the other half of me. She was the other half of me and I was the other half of her. And I was the other half of her.! I've never felt that before. Honesty, I don't think either one of us had - no matter of previous relationships...this was much much different. Heaven had granted both of us a wish come true. And I know I worked hard for that true wish and I'm sure she did too. But, by god, I'd met the other side of half of my heart..which she firmly holds and appreciates to this day. God... thank you. Seriously thank you...I'm a lucky, lucky man."
HOW HE ASKED
"So this lucky man was sitting on the edge of the paradise. Our own outdoor bed next to our grass hut bungalow by our own private beach in Tulum Mexico reading Tennessee Williams "Night of the Iguana" and fittingly sharing a coco y rum with dos straws when I could not resist the urge any longer to ask the most beautiful and phenomenal woman I've ever met to marry me. With my two hands and her two hands firmly gripping each other's hearts we walk hand in hand into our future. Lastly, god has Blessed us both - because this what true love feels like; loves like, forgives like, holds true and firm like, looks like, gets excited like, and honestly it smells like......and it smells like gardenias."
Christlyn and Erik are Atlanta Wedding and Engagement Photographers.