When I first met with Veronica and Noe to talk about wedding photography, I asked Noe how he proposed. He said he asked Veronica to marry him on a mountaintop in Big Sur — which is the exact thing I did when I asked Amber to marry me. I knew we were going to get along great.

I also knew exactly where the engagement session had to be.

The first time we tried to shoot their Big Sur engagement session, in early December, we were greeted with cold, fog and increasing light rain. We decided to call it off.

What followed was weeks of watching the weather, coordinating schedules and trying to guess when Big Sur would behave. We arrived on a Thursday afternoon to find sunny blue skies and patches of coastal fog being pushed up mountainsides by onshore wind — classic Big Sur drama.

But, of course, the engagement session had to start on the trail where Noe proposed: Buzzard’s Roost Trail near Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. We shot engagement photos in the redwoods, along the river, by the trail marker, then headed to the coast. Veronica had three different outfits that she changed into effortlessly, and she even slipped on her favorite heels before each shot.

We planned for our final shot to be at sunset on the rocky coastline of Garrapata State Park, but as we drove north the cloud bank over the Pacific Ocean was getting taller, and I could see the time ticking away on our Big Sur engagement session. At the last minute I changed plans and we turned into the parking lot of Rocky Point Restaurant, hurried to find a spot, and shot one of my favorite photos of the day. The sun slipped behind the clouds seconds later.

Check out some of my favorite photos in the gallery below.