Lately, I’ve been working with my couples to make their engagement sessions more personal, more real, and more THEM. Today, I wanted to show you the product of that pursuit in action with Amanda and Matt’s Five Points engagement in Columbia, South Carolina.

How did we make the session a bit more real and ‘them’, you ask? Well, I asked Amanda and Matt, like I do for all of my couples, what they love to do together. We threw around a few ideas like hiking for a session or visiting a brewery. Finally we decided on an early morning session with a few portraits for the first half of their portraits (that blog to come next week!) and to stop for coffee at Drip Coffee in Five Points for the second half of their session.

While the couple cuddled up and chatted about life, their dreams, and their plans for the wedding, I was able to photograph that real, genuine interaction between them. Yes, I gave them a few prompts and set up the shot to get what I wanted, but I love how these images are so natural and so them. Oh, and I was uber thankful I had an excuse to grab coffee from Drip while shooting too!

After Amanda and Matt finished their lattes, we explored a bit of Columbia SC’s Five Points for a few more portraits. These two are FUN together, and it was such a joy to easily capture laughs because they didn’t stop smiling and laughing at each other the whole morning!

I hope you enjoy my favorite frames from this Five Points engagement session with Amanda and Matt as we stopped for some delicious coffee at Drip Coffee in Columbia, SC!

Nothing goes better together than love and coffee, amiright?

Matt is a graduate of Texas A&M University, and he wears his college ring every single day. It’s apparently quite the tradition for A&M grads to wear their rings often, and a status symbol if the ring more worn and used. As if to show the world that the wearer works hard and hustles for his dreams if his ring is worn! Such a cool tradition and story, so I had to find a neat way to feature both Amanda’s ring and Matt’s tradition.

I love the way these two look at each other… Just with their faces full of joy and happiness!

I’m going to instagram this shot one day soon with the caption “Diamonds AND coffee are a girl’s best friend!” 

Not only does Drip Coffee have wonderful coffee, lattes, and food, they also had the perfect little seats outside for us to use and still have some natural light on the couple.

After we finished our drinks, we decided to do a bit of exploring around Five Points for a few portraits of Matt and Amanda…

We played a few games together like this one… The instructions were, “Walk towards me while trying to knock the other person down with only your hip!”

Obviously, it turned out pretty perfectly, because I’m loving these laughs we captured!

Amanda is wearing a shamrock bracelet because their wedding day is Saint Patrick’s Day next year! 

OH heyyyy, Matt. Okay!!

 I wanted to show you a peek into how much FUN Matt and Amanda have together… So we are doing all of these lovey little poses on the edge of the Five Points fountain, and the next thing I know, Matt grabs Amanda and almost pulls her into the fountain. A joke, obviously, he would have never let her fall, but in the middle of romantic portraits, it was the PERFECT ice breaker moment that had us all laughing. Just look at her face!!! 

And then back to the action, ha!

I hope you enjoyed these Five Points engagement portraits around Drip Coffee and the fountain in Columbia, SC! I had a blast with this awesome couple, and I cannot wait to show you their more formal portraits next week.