If you’re thinking about having your engagement session at Green Lakes State Park, this is your sign to do it! It’s beautiful year round, even in the winter. But in the summer it comes to life with the abundance of green trees and aquamarine blue waters.

You may be wondering…

WHAT MAKES GREEN LAKES COLORS SO BLUE/GREEN?

Buckle up, here’s a quick limnology (the study of lakes) lesson!

The lakes at Green Lake State Park (Round Lake and Green Lake) are meromictic lakes. This means that the layers of water do not intermix. Usually in lakes, the layers of water intermix at least once a year. Think of large currents mixing it all up. This isn’t the case for Green Lakes.

The bottom of Round Lake (one of the two lakes featured), is about 180ft below the surface. At the bottom is sediment that is roughly another 150ft deep, which means bedrock isn’t reached until about 330ft below surface.

As such, water is fed into the lake by both precipitation and run off, and water that seeps up through the sediment from further below. The water that seeps up through the sediment constitutes nearly half of the water contained in the lakes. It carries with it heavy amounts of dissolved minerals that are not present in water that enters through the surface (e.g., rain, snow, run off).

The lower layers of water of the lakes contain a significant amount of sulfur, calcium, and magnesium which lead to the blue/green colors. And because the layers of water don’t mix, you get to see the color that the minerals cause in the water. It’s essentially a stratification of water, which is wild to think about. It leads to radically different environments for organisms to live in.

GREEN LAKES STATE PARK ENGAGEMENT SESSION

My couple N + A will be eloping later this fall in central New York and had asked if they could add an engagement session onto their package. Of course I encourage all my couples to add an engagement session if their package doesn’t include one. This is for a few different reasons and you can read about them here.

N + A currently live in Chicago and had planned a trip to visit family in Syracuse. So during their visit home, we set up a time for their engagement session. They wanted to keep it close to the Syracuse area which is what ultimately led them to choosing Green Lakes State Park.

We adventured around together, along with their pup, Lilly Rae. Enjoy these moments from their engagement session!