Skinny dipping golden hour Galiano Island (gulf islands) Engagement photoshoot

A Galiano Island Engagement Photo Session

We are big believers that not only are we wedding photographers, but we help build an entire wedding experience for our couples, from the engagement shoot, timeline review meetings, venue site visits, double dates, the wedding day, it’s all coming back to the single most important part of this whole thing; remembering why you are marrying your person, and loving them each day a little more than yesterday.

We invited our couple, Ainsley and Jackson, over to Kelsey’s parents house at Galiano Island to spend a day and night with us for a full on engagement session adventure session. Ainsley and Jackson are actually getting married and having their wedding this year at Fraser River Lodge (one of our favourite venues around), which we are so excited to photograph, but I digress. We invited these two for an adventure engagement session at Galiano, and jam packed the day with so many fun activities! After these two arrived on Galiano (thanks to BC ferries), and unpacked their bags over at Kels’s parents place, we started the day with a big hike up Mount Galiano. This hike is spent mostly wandering through lush green BC forests, filled with ferns, Douglas Fir trees, arbutus trees, big leaf maples, and at the top you reach the highest peak on Galiano Island, with some seriously jaw dropping views of the surrounding gulf islands. We shared some homemade banana bread and exchanged many stories at the top before we started our descend down mount Galiano.

We spent the afternoon drinking beers and playing card games while nibbling on a charcuterie board (including a fresh loaf of bread from Sturdies Bay Bakery | Facebook). Then we took Ainsley and Jackson to one of our favourite beaches on Galiano that gets such beautiful golden hour sunsets. The white sandy beaches here surround a little forest filled with trails to explore and walk along, which we did just that to find a great (and private) location to take their engagement photos at.

These two ran along the beach, giggling nonstop, making all the memories, and after some liquid courage (ie Patron XO Cafe), they stripped down and went skinny dipping just as the sun went down and golden hour surrounded us. We were all laughing our heads off as they entered the rather nippy ocean water, and it was the perfect way to finish off their engagement photoshoot at Galiano.

We ended the night with a little double date action and dinner out at one of the newer restaurants on Galiano Island, Nimma Nimma, a restaurant we highly recommend you check out on your next trip to Galiano Island.

We are so happy that we got to make some spicy AF and amazing memories with our soon to be wedding couple, for their engagement adventure photoshoot and feel so lucky that they trusted us with this. We cannot wait for Ainsley and Jackson’s wedding day!