Shannon & Brad

The Dandenong Ranges is one of the gems of Victoria. Rolling hills thick with beautiful bushland. Shannon and Brad took advantage of this spectacular natural backdrop for their engagement photographs with photographer Michael Gray. They finished their shoot at their beloved home (I love engagement shoots at home!) which produced the cosiest set of photographs!

Shannon kicks off their story. “Brad and I met at uni when we were living in the same college. So we have been living together even before we started dating and have never looked back. We were friends for ages (I claim Brad had a crush on me the whole time but he denies it…) until one late night when we were painted smurf blue for a party, our friendship turned into something more.”

“Brad and I are notoriously awkward in photos, and were super nervous about our engagement shoot, but Gray made us feel completely at ease. At one point he asked us to spin around really fast and give each other a kiss, little did he know, Shannon is the clumsiest person you are ever likely to meet. She promptly fell in a wombat hole, and landed flat on her back. This resulted in our favourite photos of the day, but was not the last time Shannon fell over.”

“We bought a house in The Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne about 12 months ago, which relates to our engagement story and photos. We had both sets of parents with us to help us move into our new house, and the weekend was nonstop. Between scrubbing the house from top to bottom with bleach (the previous occupants left something to be desired) and trying to find some dry carpet to put everything on ( gross.. I know) time was flying by. On Sunday night Brad was being educated on “the joys of being a home owner” by our Dads and told (ordered?) to get up on the roof in the freezing cold and rain to clean out the gutters. It was one job after another all weekend and Brad barely sat down, little did Shannon know he was trying to find a calm moment to propose! Finally on Monday morning when everybody was having breakfast Shannon got up to make some toast, Brad followed, mumbling something. After three tries, and Shannon yelling “WHAT ARE YOU SAYING” he finally got out the words ” Will you marry me”, after many happy tears and a quick phone call to say we were going to be late for work we celebrated with our families.”

Brad says,  “She is loving and patient. She loves kids and will be a fantastic mother one day. She loves me for who I am but does not let me stop developing. She does get upset, but she picks herself up and keeps on going.”

Shannon says, “Brad loves me completely. He makes me feel safe and protected and I know that no matter what obstacles we come across, we will get through them together. He values family above all else, and I know that he would do anything for me. I value his commitment to me, our future and our relationship, and he is really good on the power tools!”

“We have spent every last minute we have renovating our house (in an attempt to finish it to have our 120 wedding guests over for brunch the day after our wedding) and it has become central to our relationship, so we wanted to reflect that in our pictures. We are lucky enough to live on the border of the Dandenong Ranges National Park and love spending time there, so that’s where we started. We had so much fun walking around and just being ourselves, whilst Gray took the amazing photos! We then finished up in our trackies on the couch, because if were honest, that’s our favorite place to be. ”