I met up with Amanda & Tim at the gorgeous Glencairn Garden in Rock Hill South Carolina for their engagement session. Amanda & Tim are getting married at Old Wide Awake Plantation in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina so I knew Glencairn Garden would be a great tie-in since the garden has a bit of a Charleston feel to it.
The vibe at Glencairn is definitely "old south" with hidden pathways, water features, old brick, large trees, benches, azaleas galore and some architectural features - a mini Charleston! It is one of my absolute favorite locations to shoot portraits.
Since their session, due to Covid-19, they have postponed their wedding to this coming fall & I hope this blog article finds them well and encourages them and wraps them up in support and love! It was a delight to photograph them and I cannot wait to join them in Charleston this fall!
Here is Amanda & Tim's sweet love story including their Biltmore Estate proposal!
Amanda, a marketing director and soon-to-be-nurse & Tim, an industrial fabrication business owner met each other online, spoke on the phone for a few weeks, and then met for the first time at Freedom Park. They have been together since July 4th, 2018.
In Amanda's words here is how Tim proposed:
"He planned a couples trip with my best friend and her husband to Asheville. They used my best friend, Kelly, as an excuse for a getaway because she "needed to get out of town for a couple days". He gave Kelly the ring when we first met up on Friday night to make sure I didn't accidentally see it. We had reservations for a Biltmore home tour and it was Tim's original intent to propose before we went in the house. We got to the house a couple hours before our tour was to begin and we walked around the gardens. Tim kept getting nervous and postponing proposing until there was a more intimate time with less people around. Fifteen minutes before the house tour, Tim wanted to go see the Diana statue that overlooks the house. I thought going up to the statue was crazy because we wouldn't be able to get up there and back before the tour began and the statue is on the way back to the car so we could see it when we left. He kept trying to convince me to go see it but I kept arguing that it didn't make sense logistically to go now. He finally conceded to seeing it after the tour. We were going through the tour and I could tell he was becoming less and less interested in the tour as we were going along but I just figured he was getting tired because it had been a long day. On the way out, we went by the statue and everything seemed fine. No one was acting strange in any way so I didn't expect anything. We get to the statue and take a couple pictures and Tim asked Kelly to take a picture of us. She took our picture and then I noticed an awkward pause. When I looked at Tim, he started talking about how much he loved me and how he wanted to be with me. He got down on one knee and the rest is history."
Amanda says, "Tim is always able to make me laugh, he loves me more than I ever thought possible, he shows me every day how much he cares for me."
Tim shared that Amanda's sense of humor and ability to stay level headed is what he loves the most about her. "Life is easy because we understand each other." says Tim.
I asked Amanda & Tim to describe their relationship. They said, "We are each other's best friend so we love to do everything together. Date night, walks around the neighborhood, going to the racetrack are some of their favorite adventures together. We are incredibly similar and always keep each other laughing. We finish each others sentences and joke that we have lost our identities because we are basically the same person. We even have the same birthday. We have a very strong connection and we enjoy doing anything as long as we are together."
Congratulations Amanda & Tim - I cannot wait for your Charleston Wedding this fall!