~ A real life marriage proposal / Undercover engagement photography ~

My client D. contacted me a few months ago asking if I had time to photograph his marriage proposal to his longtime girlfriend, L.

I have been super busy with multiple bookings this summer however it was impossible to say no to such a sweet guy. He wanted me to capture his proposal in a candid manner without his girlfriend knowing I was there so that her reaction would be a real moment without any nervousness or expectation.

  To accomplish this assignment I enlisted the help of my daughter. Dressed in her church clothes we would head out for a mother- daughter "photoshoot" so that if D.s girlfriend saw us she would assume that I was there photographing my daughter. 

 Our plan was to meet up ( kind of ) on the campus of NC State near Wood Dorm where D. & L .would stroll up and sit down on a wooden swing to exchange anniversary gifts ( they have been together for 9 years that day!) . My daughter and I were already nearby snapping off photos.

 D. is so awesome! He created a homemade scrapbook album that he presented to L. containing photographs that spanned all of the years that he and L. were together. On the last page were the words of his official proposal of marriage so it was super important that she did not skip ahead while thumbing through the album,lol. We devised a signal that D. would give to me when L. had reached the final page and he would be ready to pop the question. He would lean back, stretch and yawn just before she turned to that last page. This way I would know exactly when the big moment had arrived and not miss her  reaction.

 As D. & L. sat down on the swing, my daughter and I headed up to the second floor of the hallway of Wood Dorm. This gave us plenty of cover keeping with the rule of "out of sight, out of mind" so L. would not be distracted by the sound of my cameras shutter. This plan worked perfectly as L. was completely unaware of our presence throughout the photo shoot until the very end when D. told her that he had hired me to be there.

 What an amazing afternoon it was for my daughter and I to actually see two peoples lives change right before our eyes. It was really cool to be able to capture the exact moment when she said yes and to be able to deliver this moment for all eternity for D. & L. to cherish. 

Congratulations D. & L.!

A side note: Along with the realistic images that I always include with every photo package, additionally Iv'e also included a bunch of color filtered copies of the originals for D. & L.s album. (They are very creative folks who are totally into this kind of artsy look.) I wanted to showcase an alternative way of editing images in a manner that future clients may request of me. Each filter is a made from scratch custom design and is not available as a "preset" option with any software program sold on the general market. Although its time consuming to create these customized pixel colors, I enjoy the creative process of post production and am always happy to work in special editing requests from my clients.

Here is the stretch signal......

"I have something for you"....

"Will you"......

"marry me ? "

"YES!!!!!!!"

Now that it was done, it was time for  D. to let L. know that I was here working for him. After the introduction was made and congratulations were given I took a few photos of the two of them together, big smiles :) I LOVE my job!!!

  This is truly one of my favorite kinds of photo shoots. Its great to see the power of love in action and to be able to capture and deliver the real life moments that change everything. I hope that I get to do this again sometime soon!  :)

To see more images from this session please visit http://sallysiko.zenfolio.com/real-marriage-proposal-photography-raleigh-north-carolina