Zapata Falls Engagement

We’re back! After a two-month hiatus, we have officially wrapped up editing for all of our 2024 weddings, so it’s time to get caught up on blog posts. First up: Rayleen and Bryan’s Zapata Falls engagement!

Full disclosure, this wasn’t actually an engagement session, but a couple’s portrait session. That said, we’re calling it an engagement as an offering to the SEO gods.

Rayleen, who is a kick-ass wedding photographer from Connecticut, reached out to us early in the year to say that she and her boyfriend, Bryan, would be in Colorado in August to attend a friend’s wedding. And, she asked, would Moira and I have time to fit in a quick couple’s session during the height of wedding season?

It just so happened that we would be driving from Pueblo to Telluride that week, a route that conveniently passes by Great Sand Dunes National Park. And while we had been to the Dunes many times, we had never done a shoot at Zapata Falls, just south of the park entrance. Well, we thought, the time has come!

We met Ray and Bryan in the evening for some blue hour photos in front of the Sangre de Cristo mountains then drove into Alamosa for dinner and beers together.

We woke at the crack of dawn the next morning and headed straight to the trailhead to ensure that we would have the falls to ourselves. We spent the rest of the morning photographing with this lovely couple under the falls, in the slot canyon leading up to the falls, and at couple other locations with the Sangres and Dunes providing a majestic backdrop.

Rayleen and Bryan, thank you both so much for making the long drive down to the desert for your Zapata Falls engagement session (SEO, check). We can’t wait to see you both again!