Bachelor alum Arie Luyendyk Jr. and his fiance, Lauren Burnham, recently shared their engagement photo shoot with their fans on social media, and the images are a reminder that the oft-maligned pair are still excitedly on their journey toward the altar.
“One step closer to the wedding 🙂 This is what life is all about, sharing these amazing moments with her,” Luyendyk, 36, captioned a shot of the two of them cuddling together in a field of golden wheat stalks. “Under 6 months until the big day!”
Burnham, 25, shared a similar photo to her own Instagram account, though this one showed Luyendyk sweetly planting a kiss on her forehead while she held onto either side of his face, her diamond engagement ring up front and center. “It’s now just under six months til I marry this sweet man,” she wrote. “He’s the biggest blessing in my life every single day. #truelovewins.”
The couple, who got engaged amid a controversial ending to Luyendyk’s season of The Bachelor, will wed in a private ceremony in Maui on January 12, at the Haiku Mill, which Arie once praised for its “beautiful, old world feel with a lot of vines and greenery.”
Jennifer Perkins of Griffith Imaging, who shot the engaged pair in Arizona (where they now both reside), tells The Knot that she had the perfect spot in mind when they reached out asking her to take the engagement photos.
Credit: Jennifer Perkins / Griffith Imaging
“Honestly, it was just this patch of land in a wash near my house that I kept driving by and when I’d see it at golden hour it was so beautiful, soft and romantic,” she says. “It was begging for a couple in love.”
In fact, scouting a location like this is rare. “Landscapes like that are hard to find in Arizona where everything is desert and cactus, but when Lauren told me she wanted something more green and less desert, I knew exactly where to take them!” she says.
Both Luyendyk and Burnham vowed to keep a low profile following their engagement, but have occasionally surfaced to make television appearances, which has led some Bachelor Nation fans to react negatively toward the lovebirds’ engagement shoot.
But any negativity is equally balanced with fans genuinely happy for the pair, including one user, who commented on Brunham’s post: “Lauren and Ari are perfect for each other. And Becca can do better.”