An engagement session on a meadow off the Grand Trunk Trail

Ella and Caleb had only just gotten engaged — recently enough that she was still catching herself looking at her own hand. We met on an early-fall evening at the Grand Trunk Trail in Cambridge, walked a little way off the path, and found a meadow that had gone completely gold — goldenrod to the knee, wildflowers going to seed, the trees along the edge just starting to think about turning. She wore white lace, he wore linen, and between the two of them and that light, I hardly needed to do anything.

Mostly I just let them walk. Ella would take his hand and pull him further into the grass, then glance back over her shoulder to make sure he was still laughing. Caleb kept wrapping his arms around her from behind, her hands landing on his, the new ring catching the light every time. At one point he tucked a wildflower from the trail behind her ear. A lot of this session is just the two of them standing very close, forehead to forehead, eyes closed, not really posing at all.

As the sun dropped behind the treeline the whole field lit up from behind, and everything went soft and warm and a little hazy — the kind of light you only get for a few weeks at the start of fall. By the end she'd climbed onto his back and they were both grinning at nothing in particular. That's an engagement session, really — the ring is new, the plans haven't started yet, and for one evening it's just the two of you in a field, getting used to the idea.