Shivam’s Surprise Proposal to Katie at Reflection Lake

In late September I was contacted by Shivam, who was located in North Carolina.  He and his girlfriend Katie were going to be in the Seattle area in a few weeks, and he wanted to propose while they were hiking on Mt Rainier.  Shivam wanted to do the proposal at Reflection Lake, and wanted to know if I could help him with the surprise proposal and take photos while he was proposing.

As it turns out, I had done another surprise proposal at Reflection Lake a couple of years ago, and by a very strange coincidence that proposal was also with a couple from North Carolina.  So I knew the location well, and also already knew quite a bit about the logistics of setting up this shoot.  It is a bit tricky, because there is zero cell reception on the mountain, and the closest location with cell reception is more than an hour away.  So timing has to be carefully planned, and if there are any last-minute changes or problems there is no way to let the other parties know.

I explained all this to Shivam and we worked out our plan for exactly what time and where we would meet at the lake, so Shivam could carry out his surprise.  Then it was just a matter of trying to make it all happen as planned.

For those who are not familiar with the weather in the Seattle area in early October, it is unpredictable to put it mildly.  And Mt Rainier is another matter entirely, as it often will create its own weather.  So while we were hoping that we would get lucky and have conditions that would allow us to see the mountain, we knew that the odds for this were not too good.  The week before the planned shoot was very cloudy and wet, but it looked like there might be a weather window on the planned date that just might give us a chance at some sunshine, which would greatly improve our chance to see the mountain.

And then the weather did what weather often does, and threw us a bit of a curve.  The temperature dropped more than forecast, and there was some precipitation the night before the planned session.  The result was the first snowfall of the year on Mt Rainier, and a decent amount of snow at that, 4-6 inches of snow at the lake.  Which meant that driving to the lake and arriving on schedule might be considerably more difficult!

As it worked out, while there was significant snow on the road we were all able to get to the lake on schedule.  Unfortunately the mountain was hidden behind a wall of clouds, and was invisible from the lake.  I set up along the shoreline in the location I had described to Shivam, and waited for their arrival.  I had told Shivam that I would have a tripod set up to make it easier to identify me from a distance.  There were quite a few other people visiting the lake that morning, but I finally spotted Shivam and Katie.  Shivam saw where I was, and led Katie past me and out to the shore of the lake.

Everything worked almost perfectly.  Shivam dropped to one knee as he pulled the ring from his pocket, and Katie was taken completely by surprise.  I was able to get photos of the entire proposal from about 30 feet away.  You’ll see a few of these photos below.

Shivam then told Katie why I was there, and we all met for the first time.  We discussed the uncooperative mountain, and then walked along the lake shore taking photos in various places.  The snow was a wonderful extra, and helped make up for the continuing inability to see Mt Rainier.

I suggested that we drive to nearby Paradise, which was higher up and might give us a better chance to see the peak of the mountain.  We made the short drive, but all we found were a lot more poeple and no view of the mountain.  So I then suggested that we drive back down the mountain a short distance to Narada Falls, one of my favorite waterfalls on Rainier and in a location that should still be accessible even with the snow.  Narada was absolutely gorgeous with the new snowfall, and we took some photos there before wrapping up our session.

Here is a small selection of photos from our time together.