For soon-to-be married couples, engagement photos are a beautiful way to announce your plans to the world, in advance of the actual wedding invite.
It’s a beautiful, heartfelt way to share your happy news with friends and family, but still gives you plenty of time to plan a gorgeous wedding.
Lately, it’s also become a way for couples to showcase the shared qualities and interests that drew them together in the first place, like this adorable photoshoot inspired by Disney’s 101 Dalmatians.
While some couples make engagement photos a place to show off the quirky, silly side of their love for one another, while others use it as a poignant space to reflect their shared values.
It’s easy to see both on display in a series of stunning engagement photos that have recently been circulating on the web.
Captured by Good Focus Photography of Knoxville, TN, the lovely photos show the future bride and groom, both nurses, celebrating their engagement in a way that reflects the compassionate, lifesaving career choice that brought them together!
Check out the adorable photos in the gallery below!
[H/T: Huffington Post]
Chelsea Tanner and Richard Harkleroad have a classic love story.
They were introduced by friends in 2010, and had an instant spark that only grew over the next six years.
But unlike most couples, they also shared something incredibly unique that helped to bring them closer together — they share a profession.
Both Tanner and Harkleroad are in one of the most compassionate, exhausting, and rewarding professions around; they're nurses.
Chelsea Tanner, a registered nurse, works as a critical care nurse in Tennessee.
As reported by ABC, nursing is a strong bond that she shares with her future husband.
As she put it, "[nursing] is a big part of our identity, it’s who we both are."
Richard Harkleroad also works as a critical care nurse at a separate hospital.
He will graduate from nursing school in December of 2016, following in his fiancee's footsteps to become an RN.
He told LittleThings, "The idea to incorporate nursing into part of the engagement photos came from our shared passion of the field. It is a large part of each our identities, so we wanted to be able to display it in some of the photos."
As any nurse will tell you, a job that all-consuming and personal becomes a major part of your identity.
Harkleroad and Tanner decided to reflect that by making their noble profession the unofficial theme of their engagement photo shoots.
After all, it's a job that involves long hours and shifts that are both emotionally and physically draining, but it's also a career that cultivates empathy, good communication, and simple human connection.
In many ways, their shared passion for the nursing profession is an overarching theme that has informed their relationship all along!
They were both in nursing school when they met, and pushed each other to succeed and excel all throughout the rigorous education process.
Now, as qualified nurses, Harkleroad and Tanner work at separate hospitals, but each have a unique understanding of the challenges that their future spouse faces on a day-t0-day basis.
As Tanner told Huffington Post, "The best part is being able to come home and have the other person understand exactly how you feel ― from the joys of saving a life, the sadness of losing one, to the stress we face day to day."
With a notoriously exhausting job like nursing, it can be hard to find a partner that understands the ups and downs of the experience, from the odd hours to the emotional toll it takes.
Since both bride and groom to-be are in similar roles, we have no doubt that these two will truly be able to support each other, 'for better or for worse.'
Over the course of the photoshoot, their stethoscopes appeared again and again to symbolize their shared commitment to one another, and to caring for others.
The stethoscope, an ever-present tool of the trade for many medical professionals, can help diagnose all sorts of conditions.
Perhaps just as importantly, it's the tool that nurses turn to when they need to hear a heart beat.
Diagnostic functions aside, there's undeniable romance in these two wearing their stethoscopes for the photoshoot.
It proves that, on a literal and a figurative level, they'll always listen to the other's heart.
It also demonstrates a key quality for any person entering into a marriage; the stethoscopes show that they already know their own hearts.
In addition to their sweet nursing-inspired images, this duo also took plenty of more traditional engagement photos together.
We think there's something extra-special about seeing them combine traditional images with the more experimental stethoscope photos; it shows that these two will always support each other — in work, in life, and in love.
You can check out more beautiful wedding and engagement photos on Good Focus Photography's Facebook page.
If you love that these soon-to-be newlyweds showcased their passion for one another and for taking care of others, make sure to SHARE this story with friends and family!
