Jersey Shore Surfboard Engagement :: Lindsey + Ryan

Engagement

September 9, 2015

The Jersey Shore is a hot spot during the summer and especially during the last 2 weeks of summer. We were delighted to be invited to Manatoloking to spend time with Lindsey and Ryan at Ryan’s parent’s shore house. Its kind of a funny story. We left super early so that we would not be late because we were going to be shooting the last hours before the sun set. We arrived on the street bordering the the shore line about 30 minutes early and decided to put the car in park and rest for a few minutes before shooting. Jeff actually closed his eyes and snored! I just relaxed and thought through what I wanted to do during this session. About 5 min before we were expected to arrive, I woke Jeff up from his deep short nap. We drove around the corner to try and see the drive way and the description wasn’t matching up. OMG, I looked at the address in my messages and we realized we were at the WRONG address!! 8 miles on a Saturday on the shore takes 30 minutes! Well, this was a first for us. Lindsey and Ryan were very forgiving and all smiles when we arrived, thank goodness. I jumped into a bathing suit, grabbed my camera and we chased the sunlight.

The beach house literally has the ocean as the backyard. How amazing is that?! We were so overwhelmed to see a beautiful beach without people on it! We immediately ran for the water and started shooting. The Jersey Shore waves are vicious and everyone knows they aren’t the safest waters to swim in. While we were shooting, Ryan kept saying that he hasn’t seen the tides this high and the waves this intense in a while. After about an hour of shooting and dodging huge splashes of sea salt, we looked over the horizon and saw the full moon rising. Well, that explained everything! Why we were late, why the waves were so big and why I felt like I was losing my mind! 🙂 Lindsey and Ryan have the biggest smiles and are probably one of the kindest couples I have ever met. So generous and wanting to make sure -WE- had a good time, when in fact this was all about their engagement. The surfboards and bikes were mentioned in chats before hand. I loved the idea because it is something they really love about the shore house and things they enjoy doing together.

We were able to go to another shore house at the end of the session on the opposite side of the peninsula. On the other side was the view of the sun setting behind the horizon. We really got the best of both worlds. The big blue crashing waves and the still water sunset. Gah, we loved every moment. Afterwards, we went back to Ryan’s shore house where we saw the full moon gazing over the dark ocean. Having the moon in one photo only seemed right after dealing with its pull on the earth all day! We were then invited to sit around the fire pit, have a drink and watch the moon light up the night. I think we could have just became one of the family members very quickly! We love this couple and their amazing families!

Thank you for being so amazing and gracioius, Lindsey and Ryan. We enjoyed the adventure with you both and can’t wait for the wedding!

Leaha + Jeffrey