Washington National Cathedral Pre-Wedding Portrait Photos

When Ben, Giuliana, and I started planning for their Washington National Cathedral pre-wedding photoshoot this spring, we were going back and forth between the months of April and May. Ultimately, we landed on the month of May, as we knew from my past sessions that the Bishop’s Garden would be in full bloom that time of year. We also took into consideration the fact that May is generally much warmer than April, as April in Washington, DC is fairly unpredictable. It turns out that the District is just all around unpredictable! This year, the entire month of April felt like summer and, so far anyway, May has been full of chilly mornings and lots of rain.

We started off the morning in the gardens to a pleasant morning. As we headed up near the Cathedral grounds, we felt a breeze rush over us and a blast of cool air lingered for the rest of our session. Despite the unseasonably cold temperatures we experienced throughout the session, Giuliana and Ben were both troopers and didn’t complain once. The other trooper? Well, that would be their sweet dog, Sunny, who was a pandemic fur baby :) He was as adorable as he looks and could totally pull off being a model pup after how well he did for our shoot!

Ben and Giuliana met while attending school in Alabama, and moved to the Washington, DC area shortly after graduating. They are to be married in Virginia’s wine country later this month at Stone Tower Winery. Before the big day, however, they wanted to have wedding portraits in honor of the city they’ve come to know and love as they’ll be moving to New York City shortly after their big day. Pre-wedding shoots are one of my favorite things to photograph. They are truly the ultimate first look; pre-wedding shoots allow for couples to capture all of the beauty of a wedding day without any of the pressures of a pending timeline. It also removes all of the nerves from the actual wedding day, as couples can relax knowing they’ve got those frame-worth photos already in the bag and can focus on the moments ahead!

Enjoy peak into Giuliana and Ben’s pre-wedding portraits at the Washington National in Cathedral!

Romantic pre-wedding portraits taken at the Bishop's Garden and Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC.