“We’re not friends… We’re sisters.”

I will never forget the day Amanda said this. We were fighting at the time and while I don’t remember exactly how old we were we couldn’t have been older than about 8 or 9. We were sitting on opposite sides of the room and Amanda’s older brother was trying to mediate. This was Amanda’s response after her brother said “Why are y’all fighting, I thought you were friends?”

As I sit down to write this blog my mind is flooded with stories like this that I could tell. Amanda (or Manda, as she is better known) and I met in Kindergarten and she has been one of my best friends ever since. We’ve had our ups, and we’ve had out downs (as all sisters do), we’ve drifted from each other in small ways as we both moved to different states before both moving back home to Texas, but we have always been rocks in each other’s lives, always keeping in touch and being there for all the big moments, good or bad. (I’m even one of the few people allowed to call her Amanda instead of Manda!)

So a little over 3 years ago, when she told me that her “roommate” Kelsey was her girlfriend, I could not have been happier for her! I already knew and had seen just how happy Kelsey made her and them being together made perfect sense. And it was almost murder trying to keep it a secret until she was ready to tell more people!

Now, over 3 years later, I’m overjoyed for them again as they start to plan their wedding!

Their engagement story is one of my favorites ever and here’s why….

Kelsey proposed to Amanda on a camping trip in January with a beautiful pearl ring. And of course she said Yes! But what Kelsey didn’t know is that Amanda had just ordered a ring for Kelsey and had been planning on proposing as well! The ring Amanda ordered had the sound waves of her saying “I love you, Kelsey” engraved into it. So a few weeks later, Amanda made her own proposal and … as you may have guessed, Kelsey also said Yes!

For their engagement portraits we spent the afternoon at one of their favorite places right outside of San Marcos, Martindale.

This adorable, tiny, and almost seemingly deserted town on the San Marcos River had all three of us completely captivated. The old buildings and houses, quaint park, and abandoned downtown street and buildings made for the absolute perfect backdrop!

I could not have had more fun capturing Amanda and Kelsey’s love. There have often been times throughout the past few years that I witnessed them do something cute and wished I had my camera on them. So it was so great to spend an entire afternoon doing nothing by capturing all their sweet adorable little moments. Here’s is just a sneak of what our afternoon together looked like…

(Make sure you make it to the end for 1 more awesome part about this day and the story behind it!)

While there are several uninhabited buildings in the downtown area of Martindale, they are almost all in the process of being renovated. At the end of our session, as we were packing up to leave, one of the workers came out of one of the buildings, came across the street to where we were and said “Do you want me to let you inside here? There’s a really cool wall in the back…” He let us in, lead us to the back of the building, and my mouth dropped. It was perfect. It was exactly what I had hoped for and envisioned when we were planning this session!

He told us that several movies had been shot in that building and there were even still some props and set pieces that were left behind. I did a quick Google search and found that some of the films shot in Martindale include  A Perfect World, starring Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner, The Newton Boys, starring Matthew McConaughey and Ethan Hawke, and New Line’s 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

He gave us permission to have the place to ourselves and take as long as we needed, to just close the door when we left. As soon as he walked away Amanda and I started squealing and high fiving and jumping up and down like little girls! It was PERFECT! And we were using the same set space that major film crews had used! Does it get much cooler than that?

I couldn’t have possibly asked for a better end to this already perfect engagement session….

Congratulations Amanda & Kelsey! I love you guys so much and am so excited to watch you build your life together!