Hope + Garret have the most fun, spunky, and affectionate relationship. They met years ago when Garret was a Club Promoter in Vegas, and Hope was a Dancer – the coolest story, I’ll go into details in a minute. We shot this session on one of the hottest days Vegas had seen that spring, in direct sunlight, in the Nelson Ghost Town. If you haven’t been, it’s worth checking out if you like old cars, abandoned buildings, and most obviously…ghost towns!
I met up with Garret and Hope in the dessert about an hour outside Vegas in late Spring. I was on a 72 stint there with my friend Trinity who is from CA also, and our friend Rose who’s a Vegas native! The three of us drove into the dessert in the early morning to photograph these cuties, and by 11am it was already 105 degrees. Anyone who is from Vegas knows this is totally normal, however, Trin and I were sweating buckets just standing there.
We walked into the main office building – one of two inhabited buildings in the ghost town – to find a middle aged woman making a sandwich at the front counter which was also obviously their kitchen, with an open binder to her left. We had to sign a sign in sheet for photographers and pay a ten dollar fee to use the grounds, a little thing to note for any photographers who are feeling inspired to plan a shoot here.
After signing up, Garret and Hope pulled out their wardrobe pieces for us to style them… some of the hardest styling I’ve ever done, because I would have been thrilled to shoot every single thing they pulled out of their car! Once they were dressed, we shot in an old hay barn, with crashed airplanes, in an old mechanics shop with some beautiful old cars, and ended our shoot in a chapel with stain glass walls in the center of an otherwise entirely wood-constructed town.
Okay, okay, I know you guys probably are waiting to hear about how they met since I said I would share that! To preface, the only thing I thought when they shared the story was “this is such a classic Vegas romance story, wow I could not love this more if I tried.”
Now that you have been properly prepared for the sweetness…Garret was working as a Club Promoter at the time they met, and essentially spent all his nights out at bars and clubs on the hunt for the best nightlife Vegas had to offer. One night he was out scouting, and walked into the club where Hope was dancing at the time. If you ever meet hope, you’ll know what we all know, which is that her energy is so vibrant and instantly captivating, that anyone who walks into a room she’s in will be drawn to her vibrant warmth and huge smile immediately; Garret was no exception.
Garret had no idea how much his life was going to change that night, but after talking a bit when she was done working, Garret invited her out to a club he was promoting for the following evening. Obviously, as all good stories end, Hope went the following night + the rest, as they say, is history. They got married a little while later + are still the best supporters to each other, despite all going on in their lives and in the world.
Even months after meeting these two, and spending one of the sweatiest mornings of my life in Vegas, I can’t stop thinking about the beautiful energy both of these humans bring to the world, their love, and their marriage to one another. Capturing love stories like theirs reminds me how truly good it is to be in love with your best friend.
