Chicago Engagement Photography: Rachael and Ben

Rachael and Ben live in Washington, D.C. and are getting married in Chicago this month!   I had a great time photographing them during their recent Chicago visit.   These two are a first for me:  High School sweethearts!

We started shooting on the lakefront at Northwestern University, where Ben proposed to Rachael.   Unfortunately, we couldn’t find the rock they were sitting on when he did it!  :-(

These two love to play together.   All I had to do was document and laugh.  :-)

We all laughed quite a bit!   I think they love laughing as much as I do!

We also visited the Baha’i Temple in Wilmette… my first time there!

I haven’t met many couples who have known each other most of their lives, and I am so happy that Rachael and Ben introduced me to what lifelong love really means.

Thanks so much, you two, I cannot wait to document your wedding at the end of the month!

I found their story so wonderful, I asked Rachael to write a few words about how they met.

From Rachael:

“Ben and I have known each other for so long that we can’t even say when we first met . . . but we didn’t really get to know each other until some miracle at our high school’s scheduling office put us in the same English-History class junior year. I didn’t think much of it when I saw Ben sitting in Ms. Naro’s classroom, but I sat down next to him because we ran in overlapping social circles.

Then, we started to talk. Ben listened to everything I had to say. He made me laugh (though I often pretended to groan at his jokes). Pretty soon he was giving me rides home from school. Then, rides to school. At one point, he started coming over early enough in the morning to make me eggs for breakfast. (I’m still spoiled . . . these days he makes me oatmeal.)

We went to prom junior year. Again senior year. BenandRach became one word among our friends. But we decided to go to different colleges to figure out who we were independent of each other. After college graduation we traveled to different corners of the world (I lived in Costa Rica; he lived in Israel), and, as everyone expected, we came back to each other in the end.

Now we’re living in D.C. and things are simply wonderful. Ben makes me feel free to be myself; he says I help relax him and remind him to take things less seriously. We both love language and word play and somehow it seems like every day we invent a new word or expression unique to us. Ben still makes me laugh, and, on the days when I’m especially lucky, he sings to me.”