Engagement portraits at the Garden City Pier and Atalaya Castle

These engagement portraits were for a fun couple getting married very soon in August.  I always prefer doing engagement portraits for a couple before I photograph their wedding, that is why I offer a discounted engagement session for wedding clients.  It’s a nice way to get to know each other and make sure that they like my style and I know what they like as well. The Garden City Pier is special to this couple so they wanted to do some of their engagement portraits at the pier. I told them it was going to be crowded and difficult to do pictures at the pier, so we decided to start there, then go to my usual location at the Huntington Beach State Park after.  It actually ended up not being too crowded at the pier in Garden City, we were still not in the full summer tourist season. Even though the sun was still bright we were able to get some good shots in the shade beside and under the pier. We even did a portrait with the shops of Atlantic Avenue in Garden City in the background just for the memories.

After traveling to the Huntington Beach State Park we did a lot of my usual pictures around the Atalaya Castle.  I especially like the ones by the ivy covered castle wall. The ivy going out of focus in the foreground and background of the image is always a cool look. The shots by the dunes and laying in the sand together turned out very nice as well. In fact, I just got my own engagement pictures done there, if you want to check them out I uploaded them all to Facebook! I also loved some of the fun pictures at the end, the couple got wet running through the edge of the water. So they ended up just getting very wet and going waist deep in the ocean and splashing each other with the ocean water. I hope you enjoy the pictures below, please like, comment or share if you do!