This day was so unexpected and unplanned and unpolished and imperfect, yet it become one of our favorite days in our entire trip to Sydney.

In the month of June we went back to Australia for a month, our first time there since getting married in August 2017. We were waiting for a greencard, which has been a really long and painful process. All throughout my visa and greencard journey I have been helped by Kiara, a beautiful friend from Sydney who fell in love with and married a photographer from Portland. We have such a similar story – they are both full time wedding photographers as well. Kiara has been there to answer my questions and cheer me on as I wait (and am still waiting!) for my greencard. We’ve been friends for years but had never actually met – the timing never worked out when we were in Portland or they were in Seattle.

So to find out that they would be in Sydney at the SAME TIME as us (on our ONE trip to Australia on a special and almost-expired travel parole card) was insane. We tossed up some places in Sydney to meet but both of us got honest and said we’d rather meet somewhere relaxed on the south coast, which is where I grew up and Kiara spent a lot of her years before moving to the US. Meeting David and Kiara was obviously incredible, and we could have talked all night. We walked over to Thirroul beach (nothing crazy or instagrammable, just an ordinary beach along the south coast of sydney), and decided to shoot each other.

Nothing staged, nothing perfected, nothing for instagram or our blog or anything – just for us.

We felt alive, we felt young, we felt wild and electric and more magic was in us than the moonrise held or the sea spoke. The scent of the australian shore, the way the pink hues hugged the horizon, the warmth of the air and the soft squish of the sand, the moon reflected in Camron’s eyes, the way the wind felt wrapped around our skin – I won’t forget a single part of it.

These photos mean so much more to us than we could ever say, and in part it’s to do with the simple fact that we didn’t try. It was exactly what it was – us, running into the water and feeling young and embracing this precious moment in time in Australia.

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All of these photos are shot by Kiara + David from Indwell Weddings, however we edited them ourselves with Seasons Preset. They will be blogging these photos on their website soon too, with their own edits (they also sell presets!).