A few days before I got a message from Elijah, I had been lamenting to my husband about how I would love to photograph a proposal, but felt that staging one felt like I wouldn’t get what I wanted. How would people know it would be something I’d love to do if it wasn’t in my portfolio?
In came Elijah with an idea.
He wanted to do a couples shoot the 15th of February, since Mallory (his girlfriend) had been wanting to do one with me for a while. This shoot would have a catch, he’d propose in the middle of it.
We got to planning. I had a few prompts in mind to make her turn around, but Elijah made the real magic happen when I asked if there were songs I could play during the shoot to personalize it (I always try to ask this with my couples shoots). He made me a playlist that MUST be played in order for this whole thing to work.
Before you keep reading, do yourself a favour and listen to Life’s a Happy Song, because that is the song that brought the whole thing together.
The beginning of the shoot, we treated it like a completely normal couples shoot. Doing all of the normal prompts & poses. Elijah was hiding the ring box in his coat pocket & it was my job to try to ensure that she didn’t want them taking off their coats until the proposal. Luckily, it worked & Elijah rocked the beginning of the shoot & you can’t even tell that he’s full of nerves!
The night before, all I listened to was this playlist, beginning to end, so I’d know it inside & out. Once Life’s a Happy Song started, I was to take her aside & do just a few photos while he prepared for what was to come.
Which as you can tell, she rocked it & still had no idea what was going on (which is probably the best part of this whole thing!).
Once we got closer to the lyric in the song, I got her to come back to Elijah with her turning her back to him. The prompt was that she would turn around on “three” & run to jump into his arms. This of course wasn’t going to happen.
He’ll ride up on a steed
And get down on one knee
And say, “Mary, will you marry meee… please?”
Within that, I said “three!” and these pictures can speak louder than anything I can say.
If that didn’t leave a huge smile on your face, I don’t know what will.
After that, we continued with the shoot! I brought a blanket & Elijah asked me to bring rose petals to make it extra special (with it being the day after Valentine’s Day, those were easy to find!).
The emotion & excitement was SO real! She kept asking questions about how long he’s had the ring, who else, knows, & everything else!
During shoots, I love having them ask each other questions & backing away. Creating emotions & reminiscing, but not eavesdropping. Some questions that I had these guys ask each other before the proposal were “In the last year, what was the time you were most proud of them?”, “How did you meet?”, “When did you know you loved them?”.
After the proposal, it was more fun to be able to ask “When did you know that you wanted to propose?”, “When did you know you WANTED him to propose?” and questions like that!
It was just so much fun to be part of such a big life moment for this beautiful couple! I seriously can’t wait to see where life takes them.
Thank you for letting me apart of this. This was such a wonderful reminder of why I love what I do.
Warmly,
Caroline
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