Call it luck, call it fate, call it hard work
Whatever it is, Jenn found a post on FB from a girl looking for a photographer to shoot her brother's proposal.
Date: July 17-19. Location: Three hours outside of Seattle.
"But wait, you guys live in Florida, did you travel across the country for this?" The short answer is "no (though we do travel for these)." The long answer is also "no, but that was the weekend we were going to be in Seattle to shoot a wedding". It felt like the stars had aligned. We had a couple Facetime calls with Ian to get his vibe and to make a ~loose~ plan for the proposal. We're so glad we did.
1: Ian rules. He is so kind and enthusiastic and he brought us ideas and allowed us to mold them into a workable plan.
2: The nice thing about shooting in a national park is that it is often so far removed from civilization that you can unplug and really just exist. Unfortunately this also includes cell towers.
Our initial plan was simple, ask them to take pictures of us, then offer to take pictures of them. Easy. Until we got to the lookout point and realized that the place that would actually work best for photos was an unpaved outlook off to the side that you had to climb a guardrail to access. This would have been simple enough to communicate were it not for the aforementioned lack of cell towers. If you are ever stranded in the woods, you can put your iPhone into Satellite Mode and point it at the sky and you can send text messages (no pictures) and update your location on Find My so your friends and family (or kind, soon to be engaged couples) can locate you. Fortunately for us, they got held up at dinner and that gave us time to send a few words to space and get a few back in return.
The plan was set. Jenn was going to go to the spot we chose, I was going to stand at the official overlook and suggest that they could get better pictures if they went around the bathrooms, hopped a barrier, and walked in the dirt down to the better viewpoint.
3: Isela also rules. She could have said no and threw off our entire plan and Jenn would've been stranded in the wilderness, likely forever.
But she was equally delightful as Ian and while they walked down to their half-unknowing life-changing moment, I stayed up and got a different angle for a few shots before running down to meet them officially.
After about 15 more minutes here, we loaded into the cars and drove a couple minutes to the beach we passed on our way up. We spent nearly an hour here with them making the most of the soft, diffused light that was cast on us as it ripped through the mountains behind them.
Ian and Isela both work as Jewelers and he designed the ring and had it custom made and it is stunning. Like them.
As the sun began to grow really dim, we packed up, congratulated them, and thanked both them and the lucky stars that we got to meet such a kind, genuinely in love couple like them.
