Recently my friend Holly and I had the pleasure of meeting up with Rachel and Alex for their engagement session in Washington DC. Both Rachel and Alex live there, so what better place for an engagement session!  This time of year was the famous Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington DC. After getting ready, we drove into DC to meet Rachel and Alex at the main Cherry Blossom area next to the Jefferson Memorial along the tidal basin. This was my first time in DC and I had no idea Cherry Blossoms were such a big deal. 

When we arrived it was packed! I mean wall to wall packed with zero places to park. Holly dropped me off in the middle of a street and I hiked it over to meet Rachel and Alex. We started shooting, but it was damn near impossible to do anything with so many people crowding around. If you have never seen the Cherry Blossoms in DC, they are pretty awesome, but be warned of the vast number of people that will also be there. It was like a swarm of Locusts flying in to eat everything in sight. Holly ended up driving around the city for 1 1/2 hours simply because there was literally nowhere to park.   

We all ended up making our way over to the National Arboretum to try our luck there. Things were much more relaxed and easy to manage. After having a hot dog and coffee, we started shooting in a few different locations. One of the coolest features of the arboretum were the original columns from the Capital building. We got about 15-20 minutes in before we were kicked out by security for not having a permit. Of course it was Sunday and the government doesn’t work on Sundays, so we couldn’t apply for a permit even if we wanted to. That brought us to our third location.  

We headed over to one of Rachel and Alex’s favorite bars. The Boundary Stone Public House of Note Bar in the Bloomingdale neighborhood turned out to be just the right spot. We all grabbed a beer and relaxed before shooting some more. There was some pretty amazing chemistry between Rachel and Alex that seemed to radiate all the time as you can probably tell from the photos. After the bar we walked down the street to one of their friend’s house to take advantage of the city’s ambiance. Although both Rachel and Alex are very outgoing and adventurous people, they also enjoy taking it easy. Since it was Sunday, taking it easy seemed like the right thing to do. After all, the Commodores said it’s easy like Sunday morning. 

After we finished up with Rachel and Alex’s engagement session, they gave Holly and I great information and directions to take advantage of the city. We didn’t have much time, but we planned to take full advantage of the little time we did have. After finding a $25 a day parking garage, we rented bikes which can be found all over the city. If you plan on visiting DC, I highly suggest you ditch you car ASAP and grab a bike. Parking in DC is almost zero and drivers are crazy. You will constantly be honked at for everything and anything. You take longer than 0.000054758 seconds to go when the light turns green….HHHOOOONNNNKK! So yeah, Holly and I rode our bikes all over the city.

We managed to visit some of the typical tourist locations like the Capital Building, the White House, Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. Riding the bike was a blast and a workout. I also managed to crash mine into a parked tour bus while attempting to ride and shoot video. You can see some of the footage on my Tumblr. After out DC city adventure we hopped back in the car to make our way back to Atlanta. Driving home was pretty rough. After walking and riding bikes all day with very little food, neither of us had much energy. Also, driving back home from anywhere always seems less exciting and manages to take what seems like double the amount of time. I managed to get a pretty sweet souvenir from Virginia. A nice sheriff gave me a speeding ticket for going 13 mph over. He was cool enough to knock it down to 10mph so I wouldn’t get hit with reckless driving. Although I would argue there was nothing reckless about my cool, calculated driving skills. 

My name is Matt Druin and I’m an Atlanta wedding photographer that specializes in unique, offbeat weddings for all awesome people! Not only do I shoot amazing Atlanta weddings, but I also travel frequently for destination weddings, and weddings all over, with no travel fees in the US for amazing wedding photography. I also shoot Atlanta engagement sessions for newly engaged couples. I’ve even been known to travel, and far, for engagement sessions too!

Contact Atlanta Wedding Photographer Matthew Druin

Email [email protected]

Phone 678-551-0115

Address 225 Parkway 575 #66 Woodstock, Georgia 30188

Portfolios www.matthewdruin.com

 

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