Erika and Ian had the perfect summery night for their summer Midtown Detroit engagement session. Erika is the little sister of one of my 2019 brides, Kelsey, and I was beyond excited when she reached out asking me to be her wedding photographer! Kelsey’s family is one of my favorites I’ve ever worked with – I’ve also shot her sister Kristin’s newborn session.

Erika and Ian met as babies – literally babies in a church nursery together. They have known each other their entire lives – and their families are close friends, vacationing together and living near each other. As Erika says, it was always right person, wrong time their entire lives, until post-college when they finally started dating. Their relationship had ups and downs, but it ultimately lead them back to each other and a wintery proposal!

It’s honestly so unique to have a couple who has known each other since they were so young. I wonder often if my own husband would have even liked me as a child – we met as adults – but he assures me that I wouldn’t have liked him at all! ha! Erika and Ian have such history and I bet that informs their love and relationship so very much.

These two are so laid back that they pretty much let me lead the way their entire summer Midtown Detroit engagement session with locations. The Wayne State campus has lovely MCM buildings that are underused (in my opinion) and I adore the Detroit Public Library facade across the street. For a summer Midtown Detroit engagement session, these are some of my favorite locations – and they’re less popular than the DIA (which is great, just much busier).

For a more fun color-pop, we also visited the Cass Ave viaduct up in New Center to end our session. Who can resist the teal of that underpass? It’s one of my favorite spots for those who love color and it’s usually not busy – in fact, you can sometimes get the best sunlight if you time it right!

Can’t wait to share their beautiful rainy wedding day too!