What a beautiful garden spider!
We get big spiders like this at our house because we live near a lake. Sometimes they get so big we give them names - these kind are big enough that their bodies are about the size of a quarter. They like to build their webs over our windows because the light in the house attracts bugs at night. Ours are typically orb spinners and are often orange and black. Last year they were so numerous it got a little ridiculous and people around here called it a "Spider Year". There were so many webs that sometimes they were connected together.