Unless you're Tennessee-based photographer Shea Cravens, you've likely never strolled into your local Olive Garden and thought to yourself, "This would make for a great backdrop for an engagement photo shoot!" We get it. You were likely far too preoccupied with thoughts of endless breadsticks and Chicken Parmigiana.
For Cravens, though, when a newly-engaged couple wanted an engagement photo shoot at a location that was a bit outside of the norm, Olive Garden quickly came to mind.
A post shared by Carlsey Bibb (@carlseybibb)
"I asked Shea - our photographer and longtime friend - if there was anywhere she had been wanting to shoot but hadn't yet. That's when she mentioned Olive Garden!" said Carlsey Bibb, one-half of the engaged couple, while speaking with BuzzFeed.
Cravens told BuzzFeed that, oddly enough, the idea for a photo shoot at Olive Garden came about during lunch at the Italian-American chain.
"I looked over at the building and said to my mom, 'This would be a cool spot to take some photos'... 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.
In a video Cravens shared on both Instagram and TikTok, we see the exterior of Olive Garden, which is giving serious charming-town-in-Italy vibes. Cravens has received plenty of positive feedback for her Olive Garden engagement photos.
"I've never shot photos at any other restaurant, but I've done a photo shoot outside of Big Lots because it was a really neat area that caught my eyes to take photos at!" she said.