“Let me start off by saying I’m very picky when it comes to photography styles, especially if I am IN the photo. I found Ali on TikTok, and immediately loved her style of capturing split-second moments through prompting (not “posing”) those in front of the camera. I wasted no time filling out the form to have her as our wedding photographer, and while she was booked on our date, we decided to do an engagement shoot next time she was in town… The shoot was MAGICAL! Ali’s prompts and energy allowed us to look natural – yet radiant – in front of the camera… And her photography itself is just DIVINE – from angles captured, to framing of each shot, to editing, we truly created lifelong memories via her artwork… Prior to our engagement shoot, my fiancé and I didn’t have any photos of us together where we love the photo itself AND how each of us looked. Now we have a cinematic, “these look like they’re from a movie” storybook to remember our engagement, frame in our home, and ofc to show off on our save the dates and invites. Thank you to our fairy photomother <3″ -Ali

I may not be photographing Ali’s and Karthik’s wedding day (still DE-VA-STATED), but damn, their Minneapolis engagement photography session was one for the history books.

“Um, since when did you swap out your Nashville street cred for Minnesota?” you may or may not ask.

While I don’t brand myself a Minneapolis engagement photographer (that’s ‘traveling wedding photographer’ to you, thanks very much), every time I shoot here, it feels like coming home… probably because it is. 

The Twin Cities are basically next door to my family roots. So if you’re asking me if I want to hop on a plane, bring my fave film stock, and turn downtown Minneapolis into living, breathing visual poetry? 

From now on, the answer is: … but, have you seen Ali and Karthik’s gallery?

Two Type-A Visionaries Walk Into Downtown Minneapolis…

Collaboration, not choreography. (Read: the difference you can feel in Minneapolis engagement photography.)

Ali (the engaged one) is a planner. I’m a planner. Which meant the pregame played out with twenty outfit links, vision boarding to beat the band, and enough prep to give our Type-A personalities the sweet satisfaction of knowing where this was headed. 

Not to control it within an inch of its life. To move it out of our heads and into muscle memory before we ever shared physical space. 

It was collaboration, plain and simple. And the photos? To f*cking die for.

Intentional but crackling at the edges. Ali in a couture-coded white dress outside the Northwestern National Life Building, claiming it like palace grounds, acting as if the camera was incidental.

Except it wasn’t. 

She flashed my lens knowing smiles when Karthik said something only she could hear. Met every prompt as if she already anticipated it. Turned crosswalks and stone columns into set pieces that made zero sense until she stepped into frame. 

We were only warming up, and already, their engagement photos felt… inevitable.

This is the part of the work that no one sees: building the shot list, learning the quirks, co-owning the organization so we can both throw it out the window the second the moment asks us to. It’s the paradox I live for.

I’m a no-holds-barred artist with an itinerary. An extrovert who feels at peace with you in the foreground; an introvert who loves me a good icebreaker question and overplans so you can forget the plan entirely.

I hold space for the paradox because you are a paradox too. 

Ali will tell you she’s picky about photography style. She will tell you she gets nervous and awkward in front of a camera. And yet, by the time we hit the sidewalk, my lens went from spotlight to witness.

The prep did the holding so she didn’t have to. And that’s where “let’s pose by a fountain” becomes “let’s co-conspire, break a few rules, and see what happens.” 

(Spoiler alert: we got into trouble).

Artistic genius and a little rule breaking

Minneapolis engagement photography done (better than) right

Ali and Karthik’s fountain photos look exactly like their morning felt. Light doing its thing. Air soupy with humidity. A soft morning breeze trying, failing, bless its heart.

And then… “You guys can’t be taking pictures here.” 

There’s Ali giving full La Dolce Vita like a Valentino muse in a Fellini frame. Karthik curating his own private mental gallery. And me remembering my grandpa’s words of wisdom: ask forgiveness, not permission. 

I pulled my usual “we’re just friends hanging out” (not my first rodeo) and he hit me with an apologetic but firm: “architecture photos only” (not his either). Joke’s on him, though, because I already had every frame I needed, and then some.

The benefit of being efficient with a camera: by the time someone says not today, the moment’s already living on my card and rent free in my chest.

Grandpa would be proud. 

Oh and *that* white dress? Ali fell in love with a KYHA gown, found a Mishka dupe, sourced matching fabric, and had a seamstress tailor the silhouette until it read ‘couture’. Genius move, if you ask me.

Which is to say: you don’t need a $5k label to look like yourself turned up to eleven. Just like you don’t need to predict every beat of your Minneapolis engagement photography session to get photos that are almost too good to be true. You need creativity, resourcefulness, and a *tiny* bit of audacity (and a photographer named Ali in your corner).  

That authenticity you’re craving? It lives somewhere between the vision board and the “f*ck it why not-ness” that makes you so unapologetically, unmistakably, cinematically you. 

We only got scolded once by a security guard (and a stern voice over an unseen intercom). But lucky for us it was already 9 am and we were onto the next stop: Ali and Karthik’s apartment for air conditioning and an Olipop soda.

The Hermès Scarf That’s Giving Sophia Loren in the Twin Cities

AKA, “A last-minute time change to skirt some swampy weather” -Ali, the client

If the first outfit was “Grecian goddess meets hard architecture,” the second was pure Under the Tuscan Sun. Except instead of a villa in Cortona, we had… a patch of grass outside a municipal building. 

(You know me. I always like to try to make a tiny little patch of grass read like a sweeping field.)

And the headscarf? Hermès, maybe. Didn’t matter. Once it was tied and the sunglasses slipped on, Ali was squarely in her Sophia Loren era. 

Karthik tuned to her like a favorite radio station. Pip, their dog, promoted to supporting character status because we (read: I) couldn’t NOT bring her along. And I stand behind it because nothing gives a two-hour Minnesota engagement photography session life like joyful chaos on four legs. 

Sure, the photos opened like a Vogue Italia spread, but the good stuff came after—when the styling softened and they gave themselves over to each other completely. (Chasing a dog across a field will do that to you).

The scarf loosens, sunglasses slip, Sophia Loren retires. And what’s left is intimacy: three bodies stretched out, laughter spilling, my camera happily forgotten. 

That’s the truth of documentary engagement photos that are cinematic and feelings-forward AF: two people who let themselves be seen and a photographer who knows when to shut up and press the shutter.

Minneapolis Engagement Photography That Is Anything But Cinematic (and Unapologetic)

Ali looked like a goddess. Karthik looked at her like he couldn’t believe his luck. 

And me? I was behind the camera whispering “holy shit” under my breath while film turned the whole thing into fine art.  

I’d love to say being on home turf will do that to you. But no; building the bones and then letting the day write over it will do that to you. 

Curating *just* enough to let a Type-A go completely undone (and love it) will do that to you. 

Ali and Karthik didn’t just show up for an engagement shoot— they let me in. We schemed, they trusted. They laughed through humidity and security guards and Pip darting into frame. They gave me every ounce of themselves until Minneapolis disappeared and all that was left was them— raw, tender, and a mischievous. 

For that, Ali dubbed me her fairy photomother. I died.

This is the kind of gallery I’ll stand behind forever: part planned, part audacious, cinematic to the absolute nines.

If you want some of that for yourself, let me just say: bibbidi-bobbidi-f*cking-boo.