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Kelsie + Brad | Ann Arbor Engagement

I’ve known my good friend Monty for 8 years now.   We met through my day job and though I had never met his wife, Terri, or their daughters, he’s actually a close friend and a significant Christian mentor in my life.  His daughters are a just few years older than mine, so I’ve always gotten a really good preview of what I might be dealing with in another year or so.    When I got the phone call from Monty, a few weeks back, sharing the news of his daughter Kelsie’s engagement to Brad, I couldn’t have felt more excited for the newly engaged couple.  Kelsie and Brad have been friends since the 7th grade and officially started dating when Kelsie was in 10th (shortly after Monty became Brad’s mentor through their church.)   

I felt like I already knew Kelsie from pictures and news her dad has always shared with me, but meeting her in-person felt like meeting family.   What a completely fun, considerate, intelligent & strong young woman.   During our shoot I saw a LOT of her dad’s mannerisms and couldn’t help but smile.  Kelsie, a Junior, is a phenomenal student at University of Michigan and is studying Kinesiology/Pre-med.  

Ok, so here’s the scoop on Kelsie’s fiance…Brad, a Senior at UofM, and also a member of the Air Force.  Brad will graduate a year ahead of Kelsie with an Aerospace Engineering degree but even cooler than that… he was one of 50 Airmen, out of 5,000 applicants, selected to train at the Euro-NATO Jet Pilot Training Program in Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas.  So, get this… this training facility is unique in that five nations — Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway and the United States — all provide instructors.  Canada, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Turkey also provide an instructor though they don’t have any student pilots in training.   So, for example, Brad, as a student pilot, may have a Belgian instructor pilot, a Dutch flight commander, a Turkish section commander, an Italian operations officer, and a German squadron commander.   ENJJPT is the world’s only multi-nationally manned and managed flying training program chartered to produce combat pilots for NATO.  Not only is it a tremendous honor and accomplishment to be accepted into this training program, but it speaks volumes about Brad’s character, work-ethic, leadership, and intelligence. 

Their life together will be made permanent in May 2011.   Kelsie & Brad – a HUGE congratulations on your engagement and blessings to you both as you embark upon this new path.

The spot below… on the diag… was where Brad actually proposed to Kel.  He had contacted both his family and hers in advance and had them hiding around the corner so they could be there to witness his proposal.  (HUGE kudos to Brad for that.)  We did a little reenactment during our shoot, but my pics just didn’t even come close to matching the raw emotion of the real proposal.   I did really like this one, though, with the flag, the ‘M’, and a lovely embrace.

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