Kate and Mike are just a dream. I knew it from the minute Kate emailed me – she sent me the sweetest note, ending with “is it bad to want to hire a wedding photographer because she is also a Harry Potter fan?” Obviously, I am biased and I think the answer is a resounding “no,” but nonetheless, she had me right. there. She and Mike are beyond cute. We met for a cup of coffee at a hip lil’ place called Cursed Bikes & Coffee, where they sell some of my favorite things (Coffee) as well as Mike and Kate’s (Bikes). We had a beautiful conversation about all kinds of things – two wheeled vehicles, our mutual love of Harry Potter, their adorable proposal story (which included donuts), how I got into photography, and their upcoming June wedding at Tower Grove Park/Third Degree Glass Factory. Walking away from the meeting, I crossed my fingers and said “I hope they pick me, I hope they pick me!!!” and luckily for me, they did. Kate suggested shooting their engagement at the Botanical Gardens, because that is where part of their proposal happened. Of course I was down because, as mentioned before on this here blog, it is one of my favorite places and I never ever get sick of it. The day of our shoot, it was snowing like heck – SNOWING, not like casual flurries that make St. Louisans freak out for no reason but actual big ol’ fat flakes of accumulating snow. Which they were kind enough to stand in and humor me so I could snap some quick pics with the snow magic in the background. Update for the world: I love shooting in snow, sorry not sorry. We wandered around and they only made fun of me a little for contorting myself into weird positions and crawling under things/behind trees to get those good angles – Kate was even kind enough to shoot several pictures of me shooting them, so now I have some cool behind-the-scenes stuff to share (note, it is not cool at all, I look like a total dork.) ANYWAYS, they are too darn cute together, and I cannot deal with how excited I am for their wedding this summer!!!