Surprise Marriage Proposal at Chihuly Garden and Glass

About a month ago I was contacted by Thomas. He and his girlfriend Mateja were going to be driving to Seattle for the weekend and he wanted to surprise her by proposing while they were here. Thomas wanted to do this proposal at the Chihuly Garden and Glass at the Seattle Center, and had found my name online as a photographer who had done other proposals at Chihuly.

We discussed what Thomas wanted to do, and I gave him some information about Chihuly and locations there that worked well for a proposal. This was going to happen on the Saturday of the Labor Day weekend, and that is when a large event called Bumbershoot takes place at Seattle Center. So I really wasn’t sure what kind of crowds might be present at Chihuly on that date. Obviously fewer people being present are better for a shoot like this, so the chances of a photo bomber getting in the way is less.

We talked over the best location for the proposal, and how we would text each other to make sure I knew when they would be coming into the Garden and could be in position to take the photos. When I do this kind of session I want to be as unobtrusive and unnoticed as possible to keep the surprise working. But I also need to be in a place where I have a good view of the couple so I get the best photos. Definitely a tricky situation!

The day of the shoot everything went almost perfectly. The crowds were typically large for a holiday weekend, but not oversized. And the weather was quite nice, sunny but not overly hot. I waited in the Garden until I got a text from Thomas that he and Meteja were inside Chihuly and would be in the Garden soon. Then I moved back to the building so I’d be able to pick up on Thomas and Meteja when they came outside, and follow them as they walked to the planned spot.

Once they came outside everything went exactly as planned. Thomas went straight to the location I had described, and I was able to set up where I was not obviously spying on them. As usually happens with surprise proposals, the person being proposed to is so busy paying attention to the person doing the proposal that they never know that I am taking photos, and that is exactly what happened here. Mateja was clearly both surprised and delighted as Thomas dropped to one knee and pulled out a ring.

After the proposal was complete, I approached the couple, introduced myself and offered congratulations. Then we spent about an hour taking photos in other parts of the garden in a semi impromptu engagement session.

Following are some of the photos from the session, I hope that you enjoy them! You can see more surprise proposals, engagement sessions, weddings and more on my website by clicking this link.