Kelly & Jimmy’s Cute and Colorful E-session in Oakland

This cute couple’s e-session started at home and ended close to home, just up the street from their house in fact. Which is obviously why they were at their most and natural, as evidenced by the gorgeous photos that Cherlyn Wagner of C Wagner Photography & Design took. (You can just feel the love when they look at each other!) But before anything else, here’s a fun little story that Cherlyn shared about the couple:

These two were such a blast to hang out with and photograph. They were a barrel of laughs really!

They had previously dated a few years ago and then for some reasons, went their separate ways but had always remained friends and on each others’ radar. One day, just when Jimmy got back an old cell phone, the phone rang and it was Kelly wanting to check in and see how he was doing. Before this they hadn’t spoken in over 6 months and actually there was no way of contacting Jimmy at all up until that day..and well, ever since then they’ve been together. Jimmy popped the question on a bike ride over at Crissy Fields in San Francisco.

(Aww, kitties!)

Aren’t they adorable? From here on I will let the pretty Kelly tell you the cute story of how they got together + why this e-session is totally “theirs”:

Jimmy and I met a little over 6 years ago at a bar that we both frequented at the time in San Francisco. I saw him sit down at the bar with another male friend and commented to my bar tender/friend “damn he’s hot, too bad he’s gay”, completely thinking that they were a couple. Turns out they weren’t and he was totally straight. After running when I found out he had just turned 21 and was nearly 5 years younger than me we met up and completely hit it off. We dated for about 6 months then our lives took us on separate paths so we amicably split up but remained friends. About 3 years later after both of us grew and matured we found ourselves completely in love and back together. It’s been over 2 years since then and our love just keeps on growing. Jimmy proposed to me back in June just shy of our 2 year anniversary. We went on a beautiful bike ride through San Francisco to Chrissy field where Jimmy quickly got down on one knee (I call it the proposal lunge it was so quick) and asked me to marry him. I said yes without hesitation. And then I finally got to share with him all the plans I’d been making already for our big day.

There are so many things we love doing together like hikes and bike rides, and we even played on a soccer team together for a few seasons. We also are big baseball fans, Jimmy being a Giants fan and me being an A’s fan so we go to a lot of games where there is a lot of rivalry and banter. Jimmy loves to go on long runs so I keep busy by knitting or reading. We both have a great circle of friends that we go on social outings with or stay in and play board games with. We also both work in the same field, providing support for adults with developmental disabilities so we also love plannings outings with our clients we work with. It’s really never a dull moment with the 2 of us.

When we were planning our e-session with Cherlyn we had a hard time deciding where to do our shoot. We met in San Francisco and also got engaged in San Francisco but we live in Oakland and that is where our relationship has taken off and where we have been building our lives together. We decided on Oakland since we will be getting hitched in San Francisco (Stern Grove). Lake Merrit was an easy choice because it’s close to our house, we love walking it together and it’s just a beautiful location. We had initially planned on going up to Redwood Regional Park, our favorite local hiking spot to take some shots, but ended up at Piedmont Park where the Redwoods are just as beautiful. The last location we went to was just up the street from our house. We wore our baseball gear and had a lot of fun and probably felt most natural in our team hats being playful. The whole day was so much fun because we just laughed and joked with Cherlyn the whole time and she did an amazing job at documenting that.