{Ariana + Elias} Couple #5 | Photo Session Giveaway

Here is the fifth entry for the Couple Photo Session Giveaway .

Thank you so much for your entry, Ariana! I'll be posting the voting poll after our deadline of May 30th, so please be sure to return to cast your vote. I'm so excited to see who the winner might be!

Meet Ariana & Elias...

Hi Charla,

Well you've known me since way back when in what seems like forever ago at Lakewood High School. I've liked your Facebook since the beginning of it and have LOVED your work the whole time. ;]

Mine and Elias' story begins way before him and I ever met... It was December 2007 and I was saying my goodbyes to my best friends before my sister took me to the airport with all of my worldly possessions. I was about to board a one-way ticket to Toronto, Ontario, Canada in what was to continue a long distance relationship in no longer long distance. Little me, 19 years old moving away 3000 miles for the first time. I had never lived in any other house my entire life. Looking back now, realizing how young I was, I cannot believe that my family was ok with the move - but they were and I was happy. You see, most people don't know but I was and still am a very big video game nerd - my deep dark secret. =O And while I lived in Toronto [for nearly 2 years] my ex and I grew more into best friends and less into lovers. I went to school at Seneca College in Toronto and grew more and more homesick as the time went on. I was ready to move home after a year but it was hard to say goodbye to the one person you had as a friend close by and who was your best friend. Ultimately, I decided what was best for him and I was for me to move home. It took quite a bit of time for me to get all my ducks in a row so I had to stay a few more months there until my sister Mindi flew into Buffalo and we drove home in my car which was packed with everything I owned. It was almost impossible to fit both of us in the car!

Meanwhile, Elias joined the Marine Corps when he was 17, turned 18 in Boot Camp and 19 in country. He was deployed to Iraq 2007-2008. During that time, he was dating someone else as well who ultimately broke up with him while he was deployed because she had been cheating on him. =[ Elias and I met through mutual friends on our silly video game and became fast friends. He grew up in Dana Point, CA and that was not very far from where I was moving back home to in Lakewood. He definitely helped me keep my sanity while I was preparing to move home to California. After I moved home, we became inseparable and the only times we were apart were when he had to go to Twentynine Palms. Flash forward to October 2010 and Elias and I are buying our first home in Oceanside, CA with our at the time 2, soon to grow to 3, puppies. Flash forward again to today, and I'm 31 weeks pregnant with our son Silas [due July 22nd] and we cannot be more excited to expand our little family even more. We plan to get married in Julian, CA sometime after the new year - an official date has not yet been set... Baby first, then we can start the planning. :]

Elias and I love animals (can't you tell, we've got 3 puppies? haha) and we absolutely love the Wild Animal Park. I think a great place for us to do a session would be the LA Zoo [trying to keep it within the 30 miles :P]. Or where we found our first song - if you're up to the little drive past 30 miles at Tom's Farms in Temecula. :] We were in one of the furniture shops there with my Dad and this song came on. We knew it instantly that it was our song and ever since we've just started randomly dancing at places with Elias singing to me our song. Since we are both very playful people and definitely bring that into our relationship - another place that would fit our personalities and relationship would be Disneyland.

Thanks so much Charla for this opportunity to really capture our love on film with a very talented eye ;]

You're the best!

Arianna & Elias