Ryan and I had been together for about four and a half years when he proposed in the middle of Central Park, New York in February earlier this year. It was a beautiful setting down by one of the lakes, with the magnificent New York skyline in the background. Followed by a beautiful dinner in the city with my sister and brother in law (married last September in our family home back yard – Liz and Joel’s Fun Backyard Wedding) who will be our wedding party.

As both of us don’t really like having our photos taken we decided to do something a little silly with the shoot. At Ryan’s suggestion we hired some animal heads and were very relieved when our photographer Maddie from Etta Photography was really excited to be creative with them! We decided to go with a panda and polar bear because of a silly present I gave Ryan earlier in our relationship (it was a shirt with a print of a polar bear painting another bear like a panda with the caption “But I don’t want to be a panda”, ever since then it has been our private joke).

Maddie made us up this unique “multiplicity shot” which was heaps of fun to create.

Ryan and I met while studying Engineering at the University of Queensland which is where we chose to have our engagement photos. It was on this spot (below) where we first met over five years ago and it was great going back somewhere that holds so many special memories.

We had heaps of fun sneaking into our old lecture theatres with Maddie capturing some unique shots.

Ryan and I are both love to travel and during our relationship have visited the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, India, Malaysia and more recently North America. Most of our time together is spend travelling or planning the next big trip. Due to our love of travelling we seriously considered a destination wedding. However, in the end we decided that we wanted our day to reflect us in every detail so we chose to have it where I grew up – Byron Bay.

Not knowing what to expect, we were really happy when we received our photos from Etta Photography. Maddie was extremely accommodating and worked really creatively with our ideas. We can’t wait to see the wedding pics!

Photography by Etta Photography

Ms Gingham says: As I was looking at this post I couldn’t help but smile and think “You crazy kids!”. I just loved everything about this shoot and I really hope we get to see the wedding photos too! Thanks to Louise and Ryan for sharing them today!

Louise says: “Hi I am Louise, I am a 26 year old Chemical Engineer/Safety Advisor currently working and residing in WA. My partner, Ryan, and I are busy planning our big day (10/11/12 – this was actually an accident as it was the only available date for our venue, we later found out from other suppliers that booking will be hard due to the significance which is when the light bulb clicked) to be held in a small country town, Bangalow, just 10 minutes drive from where I was born, Byron Bay.”