Mike + Taylor Engagement | Penn State Arboretum and Beaver Stadium

If you look through our dad's office, you would find lots of Our Lady of Victory Crusaders Football photos and memorabilia. One of our dad’s greatest joys was getting together with "the dads" to go rally up a bunch of elementary/middle schoolers to play "the greatest sport of all time"!

If you look through those old photos, you can find Mike and Coach Pagnotto. As a middle schooler, Mike was the guy that could be found giggling with his best friend Colton at lunch, but he was also the guy that could rally the whole team behind him! I can still remember hanging out with Mike’s sister, Christa, on the porch of football camp while our moms made lunch in the kitchen at Stone Valley. As for Samantha, she can still recall the anger she felt when she did not earn a stripe on her helmet after tackling the fastest, strongest SIXTH GRADER on the team. So what if she just held on to the tail of his jersey until he eventually fell over, it counts! (Thankfully, she has clearly gotten over It....).

I met Taylor for the first time in high school and I will never forget thinking “this girl is FUN!” The kind of hilarious, joyful person who attracts others to want to be around her, that was Taylor!

When Taylor announced their engagement on Instagram with a cute photo of herself holding a hotdog she captioned it “Zoom in on the hotdog hand“. A RING!! I instantly sent a screen-shot of the post to Samantha “this is the BEST announcement I’ve ever seen!!! From announcement to the engagement session, it was so cool to see how the fun, wonderful energy high-school Taylor, and the smiley, positive middle-school Mike brought out the most genuine happiness in each other as an engaged couple!

Better yet, they brought their pup Shrek! When Mike and Taylor summed up their relationship in one word, they wrote, "Shrek". We love it!

Mike and Taylor will be getting married at The Cork Factory but wanted a little Penn State flare to their engagement photos since they both graduated from Penn State and live locally. Unfortunately, one thing Penn Staters can count on in the summer is construction! What you can't see in these photos is the amount of construction that was happening in the area during the time of their shoot. Thankfully Penn State's Arboretum had plenty of spaces that weren't covered in blue fencing!

With so much of Penn State wrapped in CAUTION tape and blue gate barriers, we had to get creative! Thankfully, Mike and Taylor had an idea!! I'll be honest, Samantha and I were a little nervous about their location choice, but once they sent us photos, we were sold!!! Who would have thought that the tailgating parking lots could look like this! It was the perfect spot to capture the Nittany Lion logo on the Football Stadium, while also photographing the beautiful blue mountains that surround Happy Valley!

Shrek had an outfit change too!

Taylor's smile IS THE BEST! It's truly contagious! My cheeks were hurting from smiling after these two!

Mike nailed this surprise lift!!!

We all love a good climb during our photo sessions! Thankfully, everyone was on board!

The moms were watching Shrek during the session! We had to get a team picture!

We had so much fun with Mike, Taylor, and Shrek! Thank you so, so much to your mothers who watched Shrek between photos! We can't wait to celebrate your big day with you next June!!!

LOVE! Catherine