E + J | An Anniversary Session in Northern Ireland and Ireland

“And we’ll be pavement-chasing troubadours, up through the peaks and down to the shores ‘cause every place we’ve never seen before’s still waiting”

– Covenhoven

She hails from Connecticut. He grew up outside of Chicago, Illinois. They fell in love in Limerick, Ireland.

I met E when we moved in across the hallway from one another in our four-person flat at the University of Limerick. We both had ventured to this land of green and mist and magic by ourselves and soon became friends. Those first few days after arriving were a bit of a whirlwind with jet lag, new sights and sounds, orientation, and navigating the enormous campus. But somehow, someway, we found ourselves making a small group of friends—J included—from a little college in Illinois who had the same idea as us: study abroad in Ireland, even if “study” was a term we followed loosely.

It wasn’t long before E and J became close. Falling asleep on tour buses while holding hands was one of their favorite pastimes. The first few months of their relationship saw a date night in Paris, climbing mountains in Connemara, lying under the stars in Glendalough, pub hopping in Dublin, exploring abandoned castles in the countryside, and a whole lot more.

E + J are married now and they are one of my favorite couples in the entire world. For the last 6 years, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of being their third wheel whenever I’m with them and I have loved every second of it. One, because these two are such beautiful, genuine, lovely human beings. And two, because I got to witness their love from the start and there is something wonderfully sweet about that.

I’ve taken a lot of photos of these two. Turns out I even took the first one of them together. So when I had the chance to meet up with them in Ireland and Northern Ireland for a reunion of sorts, of course we were going to go all out.