The Rose Garden

What a beautiful morning in such a beautiful place so close to home! If you're looking for a peaceful morning or evening stroll, check out the Mesa Community College (MCC) Rose Garden, you'll love it.

Shelby, Jonah, and I definitely did! Shelby is a local Phoenix photographer who graduated from Northern Arizona University. (Like I will be doing within this next school year... woohoo!) It was great hanging out in person after meeting and planning this photoshoot all on Instagram.

Shelby is a talented and respected photographer, and it was great collaborating with her and seeing how our eye for photography was so similar and yet so different all at the same time! Learning from other creatives is one of the best experiences, and I highly recommend planning shoots like this for inspiration (and quite frankly, I can't wait to do this again)! Check out these sweet shots of Shelby (and some flowers) in the MCC Rose Garden!

And this morning was extra special because my boyfriend, Jonah and I got our pictures taken together too! Shelby was so great making this awkward photographer and her goofy boyfriend feel comfortable in front of her camera (yes, even photographers freeze up from time to time when a camera is pointed at them). We were laughing and making jokes the whole entire time! Thank YOU, Shelby!

Check out some of her shots from this morning below and in her blog post - she's lovely!

Side note/story: MCC was actually a surprisingly perfect place for Jonah and I to have couple pictures taken! When we started dating just over 2 years ago, Jonah was attending MCC and I was at NAU and looking forward to studying abroad that next year. Since we started out dating long distance and have been apart for most of our relationship, we make the most of our time together and try to squeeze as much into our days when I'm at home as humanly possible. This being said, Jonah has always been very busy, and sometimes all we had time for was a speed date (seriously 30min or less) at the closest Starbucks to MCC. Lots of laughs and memories were created on those short, sweet dates, and Jonah's time at MCC will always be remembered in this way. And now we have pictured memories of the very start of this relationship to cherish forever. I love you, Jonah! And thank you again, Shelby!