Engagement Shoot at Olive Garden Goes Viral: 'Tennessee but With a Little Italy Spice'
Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Olive Garden storefront
Shea Cravens, a Tennessee-based photographer who runs Hunter La Shea Photography, posted a TikTok and Instagram carousel last month showcasing the results of an innovative engagement shoot.
"When you want Italy vibes for your engagement photos, but you live in Tennessee … so you take your photos at Olive Garden," reads the text over the TikTok video. The post had more than 23,000 views as of Saturday.
The photos, all taken outside the restaurant at 6 a.m., according to her posts, were noted by commentators as turning out quite well. In the images, the couple poses in front of stone walls and a wooden pergola, with archways highlighted by landscaping that gives the photos a pop of green. Despite being at Olive Garden, the photos give an impression of a villa in Italy. "Tennessee but with a little Italy spice," read a caption.
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Cravens responded to some mixed reviews in the comments section, saying she "obviously wasn't trying to hide" the location of the shoot, even going so far as to tag the restaurant chain.
Olive Garden replied to the photo from its official Instagram: "Finally, someone who perfectly captured our good side. 📸 It was well worth the wait."
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Carlsey Bibb and Caden Mills, the couple in the photos, are getting married in October. According to BuzzFeed, Bibb and her fiancé asked for "something different" for their engagement shoot.
"I asked Shea — our photographer and longtime friend — if there was anywhere she had been wanting to shoot but hadn't yet," Bibb told the outlet. "That's when she mentioned Olive Garden!"
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Cravens' Instagram captions revealed some more of the details, where she noted that she got the idea more than a year ago, but hadn't put the concept into practice yet.
"I am so happy with the outcome," the caption read. "Carlsey asked if I had any ideas or anything new I've wanted to try for their engagement photos and I immediately said 'Soooooo I've been dying to do a sunrise session at Olive Garden' [and] she was down for it, so we did the dang thing."
"When we started planning to do Carlsey and Caden's engagement photos, Carlsey had full trust in my idea, and I'm so grateful," Cravens said to BuzzFeed.
