Hello lovelies! Happy Tuesday and man do we have a treat for you this evening! Savannah and Sam had one amazing fall engagement session. I’ve been so beyond blessed this season with wonderful couples, and Savannah and Sam are just that! These two are quite the darling pair. As soon as I met with them at Capen Park, I knew their session would go down as one of my favorites of the year. The way these two walked hand-in-hand, giddy as ever before the session even began, I knew they would blow me away from the start! Savannah and Sam did just that! Savannah exudes joy and confidence and has the most infectious smile and laugh. Sam is the perfect complement to her. Apparently, Sam isn’t much of a “picture guy” but he could have fooled me. Sam came out with all the moves and knew just what to do all evening long! I was super impressed with his enthusiasm and go with the flow attitude.
Savannah and Sam’s love is joyful and authentic and I adored capturing their sweet connection throughout the evening. We strolled around the parks and enjoyed the vibrant fall foiliage that dazzled us! The session was perfect from beginning to end! From absolutely perfect weather, to gorgeous park locations, and a darling couple madly in love, our evening couldn’t have gone better! As the sun set that evening, we ended our time at Stephen’s Lake Park in Columbia where the fall colors were showing off. It truly looked like the backdrop overlooking the lake was painted with perfect fall colors. Savannah and Sam were so much fun to work with and capturing their evident connection was easier than ever. Their session will surely leave you smiling as you scroll through their portraits! They have me counting down the days to November 2021. Their wedding day can’t come soon enough!
How They Met
FROM SAVANNAH: “Sam and I met at University Hospital in October of 2018, when I started working as an EMT in the Emergency Department. I remember sitting in the old break room before my first day, incredibly nervous about my first day at the hospital. I had no idea what to actually expect–outside of the time I spent in the hospital during my clinicals, I was totally unsure of what was ahead of me. I only recognized one other person in the room, a guy I had been through house-wide hospital orientation with the week before. I just knew I was supposed to start by training with two other EMTs, one of them being Sam. He was so well-liked by everyone in the department, and was incredibly smart and patient during the few weeks that followed. I remember not-so-subtly trying to get help from him as much as I can. He always had time to answer my questions and show me how to do things, and even let me practice straight sticking him before I could do blood draws on real patients–I told my mom and my friends later about the cute boy from the ER with the great veins. My mom told me it was a bad idea to date someone from work at the time — now look where we are!”
FROM SAM: “The first time I saw Savannah I was working in the University ER. Savannah was doing her clinical rotation at the time and had come in with one of the ambulance crews with a patient. I can’t remember exactly how we started to talk but I remember telling her that she needed to apply to the ER once she was done with her clinical rotation. I don’t believe we saw each other again until she started as a new orientee in the ER. Being one of the veteran EMT’s in the ER I was charged with training most of the new hires. Savannah was assigned to another EMT Keagan while I was stuck with someone else. Later that shift I had convinced Keagan to trade me new hires so that I could get to know Savannah more. During that time we got to know each other enough for me to one day invite her to my house to watch a TV show that she was too scared of to watch alone.”
FROM SAVANNAH: “Sam and I have very different memories about who made the first move for the first date. I remember setting Sam up by telling him that I totally could NOT watch the newest scary TV show by myself. So, Sam so bravely volunteered to watch it with me, and invited me over to watch the show. He made dinner and even had homemade wine, so I was really under the impression that this was an actual date. However, as soon as he turned on the show and I sat down on the couch, Sam sat on the opposite end of the couch and folded down the middle section of the couch between us, that had cupholders — essentially making a two feet barrier between us. My stomach dropped and I was thinking to myself, “oh…guess he was really just being nice offering to watch this with me.” Sam is not well-known for his smooth moves. It wasn’t until a few episodes later when it was time for me to go home that Sam walked me outside and kissed me that I figured out that this was his idea of putting the moves on me on a first date. Sam swears up and down that HE made the first move but I think it’s something we might always disagree on!
FROM SAM: “Our first date I had invited Savannah over to watch Haunting of Hill House which she claimed was too scary to watch by herself. I had already seen the show and told her I would tell her where all the scary parts were so that she could finally watch the show. I figured it would be a good way to get her to come hangout outside of work. I had cooked dinner and opened a bottle of homemade wine for us to have while watching the show. I just remember we were hitting it off really well and I remember telling myself that I needed to see more of this girl down the road because I hadn’t had this good of a time or had been this happy in a long time. But I was never the forward or a confident guy when it came to women in the past so I was taking it slow and tried to be respectful to Savannah and her boundaries. One of her favorite and embarrassing things she tells people about me is the time when I put down the arm rest while we were on the couch together. I was doing it to be respectful but I knew playing hard to get would work out well for me in the end since I knew she liked me by that time.”
FROM SAM: “I knew about a month into our relationship that Savannah was the one. We just meshed and everything seemed to fit between us. She had become my best friend and I couldn’t imagine living my life without her. Everything that I do in my life from now on I can’t imagine without her participating in it. I knew early on that she was my soulmate and the one that I was to marry, and that I am now the happiest man on the planet because of it.”
FROM SAVANNAH: “I think I told my friends after a week that I was going to marry Sam. I think I freaked Sam out a little bit when I told him so early on that I would marry him tomorrow, but apparently that wasn’t enough to scare him away because here we are two years later. The respect and support that he showed me from day one, and the commitment he showed to making our relationship grow, was something that always meant a lot to me. My dad always told me to find someone who makes the daily, mundane stuff fun and enjoyable, like reading the newspaper and taking the dog for a walk. Sam makes everything fun, from washing dishes to 16- hour road trips to singing rap music (very poorly) in the car, and I knew that I wanted to do life with him from very very early on.”
How He Asked
FROM SAVANNAH: “It was a really nice Saturday in August, and we both had the day off, so we were running a few errands and I had offered up the idea of going to the winery in Holts Summit (Canterbury Hill) that is about 15 minutes from our new house but somewhere we hadn’t gotten to try yet. I was kind of surprised how easily I talked Sam into it since I’m sure he had 100 projects around the house that he would have liked to have gotten done, but Sam was really into the idea! We came back to the house after our errands to let the dog out, and we took off to the winery. We were one wine flight in and I think I was mid-bite when all of a sudden, Sam pulls out this ring box. Instant tears. I think he kind of guessed my answer by the time he actually got the question out. If I would have known that he was going to pop the question I probably would have put on makeup or washed my hair but instead I just threw on a hat (something one of my maids of honor, Alyssa, pointed out was “just so on brand” for me, which I still haven’t figured out if that was a compliment or not). We told my parents over FaceTime that night since they’re in North Carolina, and told Sam’s parents the next night when they came over for dinner (longest 24 hours of my life keeping that secret).”
FROM SAM: “Savannah and I had discuss about possibly going out to a winery that afternoon. Earlier that morning we had been out shopping for a new car for her. The car search wasn’t going well so we ended up returning home. I then insisted that we go out to the winery stating that I just wanted to try something new. We ended up stopping by the house to let Max out, meanwhile I went to grab the ring. I hadn’t planned on asking that day but I figured I should carry it just in case it felt right to ask. So we went to the winery and ended up getting food and some wine to drink. The moment felt right and I just asked her while we were at the table. She was totally caught off guard and was not expecting it at all. Her first words were “Shut up” with a mouth half full of food. But she ended up saying yes while actively crying and still chewing her food.”
Savannah and Sam are truly a special pair and we couldn’t be any more excited for them and their recent engagement! Congratulations you two! Enjoy some of our favorites from the session!
