We remember it like it was yesterday. Meeting her for the first time, that is. Cool, calm, collected, and quietly confident, she emerged from her car in the parking lot of a supermarket. For her senior portraits. With us. We’d only been in business a few years. It was early in our career. She was just days away from moving across the country to New York for college. Little did we know that, a few years later, we’d be taking her wedding photos.

She was homesick those first few months apart from her family and friends. Lonely, like a lot of college freshman are. We remember all-too-well what that feeling was like. So, she called home — and asked to come back. As soon as possible. “Stick it out until Thanksgiving,” her mom encouraged her. “Then, we’ll see.” It wasn’t more than a few days later when Calyn called her mom back. Not wanting to go home. Not even a little bit. Not even at all. Mom knew that could only mean one thing: she’d met a boy. In this case, though, it wasn’t just any boy. He was the one. The one she’d marry just a few years down the road.

So, in New York she stayed. They stayed. Together. College classes. Get-togethers with friends. Spending every possible minute with the person they’d spend the rest of their life with. And when we got the call — oh, friends, when we got the call — that one of our first high school senior clients was now engaged, getting married in Arizona, and was ready to be a #ajbride, well, it was one of those surreal, full-circle moments. There’s no other way to slice it. We were, in a word, honored. We are honored. Because people like Calyn and Aaron don’t come around often. They’re a rare, special kind. Beautiful on the inside and out. Kind, considerate, compassionate. Smart enough to do anything in this world. And smart enough to never make anyone else feel small or less than. True-to-Earth, good-hearted people. A perfect match in every way.

We spent time with them in Washington D.C. for their engagement session this summer. They braved the summer heat and humidity for photos we’ll never forget. Because you can feel the breath and life in them. The joyfulness. The optimism. A future. Together. And we knew their wedding day would be no different.

Calyn and Aaron, we hope, one day, a long time from now, your grandchildren will see your wedding photos, especially the ones of you two together, and know just how much Grandpa loved Grandma. How crazy that twenty-something-year-old was for the other. And that a legacy of love — and all the goodness in it — would trickle down your family tree and affect it for generations to come, just like countless generations before. We love you both with all our heart and hope you love remembering your day through our eyes as much as we loved seeing it and telling it for you. Your magical, blush Biltmore wedding day was one for the books, and we loved every minute of it.