Sunrise Sand Dune Engagement Photos

We can always get behind a creative engagement session and this one exceeds the mark! When a talented designer, incredible photographer, and passionate couple get together, there’s no stopping them. The team shows off with these sunrise sand dune engagement photos. They achieved a desert vibe, despite their North Carolina setting, with cacti, bohemian decor, and all that sand, of course. Then, Amanda Blair by Design sat back and watched Trek and Bloom capture Dan and Meg as they ran off into the sunlight. Beautiful, eh? Oh, and their love story is even better…

Liz at Trek and Bloom says, North Carolina has a lot of pines, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and miles of gorgeous coastline, but no desert. After spending 3 months in the Southwest last fall, I was missing the red rocks and cacti a lot. I teamed up with Amanda Blair by Design to create a little desert magic in North Carolina’s outer banks for Dan and Meg’s engagement shoot and, well, I think we nailed it! (Fun fact: we hauled the ‘set’ items about 300 yards into the dunes in the freezing predawn light in order to insure that we got a true desert vibe without houses or the ocean in the background.) Dan and Meg have one of the strongest loves I’ve seen and their unique story draws you in and leaves you cheering them on.

Their love story as told by Meg…

We met online in the fall of 2013, both in new cities. I was in grad school in Kingston, Ontario, in a tight knit program that was 63 girls to 5 guys, so many of us gals were trying out online dating. Dan is military, and was stationed in Watertown, upstate New York. Dan and I both “swiped right”, but neither of us were very invested in the true purpose of the app, so we chatted sporadically. After a few weeks, I gave him my number and he asked me out. I had no sense of our geographical radius, and thought it was a joke at first, but he assured me that we were not that far apart.

After a toll and national border crossing on his part, we went out for burgers and Canadian beer. I also treated him to his first “Tim Hortons” famous hot tea. We saw each other that way for a few months, since I had let my passport expire and couldn’t go South. Eventually I renewed my passport and I went to visit him for late Christmas/New Year’s Eve. He told me he loved me then, and gave me a necklace with two gold feathers on it- I wore it every day until it tarnished so bad it became unwearable, so he bought me a new one and now I wear that one every day.

In the spring he had to move to North Carolina. There was no discussion about it, we were committed to each other so our long distance relationship just became longer. After several holidays and visiting back and forth, I joined him in NC in the fall of 2015. But because I’m from a different country, I had to get a visa. Being an occupational therapist allowed me to obtain a professional work visa that granted me temporary residence in the US for up to three years. He asked me to marry him that winter, and just a couple months after that we “eloped” at the courthouse and became legally married!

Now we are planning to have a ceremony and reception in my home town in rural Canada so that our friends and family can celebrate with us. Soon, we will be moving to Washington state and hope to be starting a family soon. I am currently applying for a green card so I can have permanent residency in the US. The logistics of our relationship have never been easy, but being with him is the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do. We are both very excited for what the future has in store.