Ocean Beach Engagement Photos

I love Spirit Airlines.

No really, I do.  I know this is a totally unpopular opinion.  How could anyone like an airline that boasts almost zero legroom, no recliner seats, and not even a free Coke?

I am obsessed with traveling.  Google Flights is on my speed-dial and my Airbnb wish list is rather expansive and organized.

So, when Spirit Airlines throws out a $70 round trip fare to San Diego, of course I’m going to fall head-over-heels in love.

Lucky for me, my clients feel the same way.

I met Jen + Chad at Wedding Wars, a bridal show that I participated in this past January.  They won an engagement session at my booth, and I was so excited to meet them and learn about the destination wedding they have planned for 2017.  I loved their story: Chad proposed to Jen on the beach, they were planning a beach wedding, and they wanted to do beach engagement photos.

Having grown up in Northern California for ten years, where I spent a fair amount of my time on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (one of the most majestic places in this country — maybe even the world — but I’m biased), I completely understand the pull of the ocean.  Colorado’s mountains are truly magical and I’ll never deny them of that beauty, but there is something so romantic about the beach that I just can’t keep away.

To hear that Jen + Chad wanted to do a beach engagement session made my heart sing.  Any chance I can get to scoot back to the Pacific?  I’ll take it!

We planned our trip to San Diego just like I had done a few months back for another client’s engagement session.  We flew out on the first flight of the morning on Spirit Airlines, packed our day full of activities (In-N-Out with a friend and reading on the beach for me, sailing with Jen’s family for them), and then later reconvened at Ocean Beach for the photo shoot.

This time, instead of sticking to just the public beach, we drove over to the Sunset Cliffs area and finished our session there.  I am so glad we made the decision to add in a second location — it was an absolutely stunning photo location at Sunset Cliffs.  You’ll see what I’m talking about in the last few frames of this blog post, which happen to be my favorites from the session.

After we finished shooting, we zipped back to the airport (which is luckily only about 15 minutes from the beach) and got on the last flight out to Denver on — yep, you guessed it — good old Spirit Airlines.

This was such a fun little day trip and I’m so happy to have spent it with Jen + Chad taking rad photos all over Ocean Beach and Sunset Cliffs.  Enjoy some of our favorite images from the day, and thanks for stopping by the blog!

And now, back to searching on Google Flights for a cheap trip somewhere I’ve never been before… 

Ocean Beach Engagement Photos | Ashley Kidder Photo

Hello, I’m Ashley and I’m a Colorado-based wedding and portrait photographer who loves to travel all over the world for photo shoots!  I’ve shot weddings in Mexico, India, the Dominican Republic, and Texas. I’m always happy to hope on a plane to snap some photos of you!  If you’re looking for romantic beach engagement photos like these, let’s chat!  I’m just a flight away!  Feel free to click here to get in touch or contact me directly at the email or phone number below.  Can’t wait to hear from you!