Surprise wedding proposal at the Chihuly Gardens

In mid-June I received an email asking if I could do a special photo shoot.  Yaron, the man who contacted me, was going to be visiting Seattle with his girlfriend Danielle and he planned on proposing to her while they were in Seattle.  But he wanted to make it a complete surprise, and also wanted to get photos of the moment if possible.  This sounded like a lot of fun; I have done a few other surprise proposals and while they can be tricky to set up they can really be a kick when planned out correctly.

Yaron already had some rough ideas in mind for the day.  He had heard about the Chihuly Gardens and seen photos, and thought that would be a good place to propose to Danielle.  But he was not familiar with Seattle in general and Seattle Center in particular, and of course had never actually ben to the Chihuly Gardens.  So we emailed back and forth, and had a couple of phone conversations and worked out a plan.  Yaron and Danielle would go to lunch at the Space Needle in the famous “rotating restaurant”, then go Chihuly, which is located right at the base of the Needle, and plan to spend some time there before things happened.  I would get to Chihuly and locate a good place for the actual proposal to take place.  I had Yaron send me a photo of him and Danielle so I’d know who to look for, and we worked out specific timing and the game was on!

Yaron and I stayed in contact by text as he and Danielle reached the Needle for lunch.  Once they finished lunch, he texted to let me know they were on the way to Chihuly and I then headed there as well.  As soon as I arrived, I located a good spot for the proposal and then Yaron and I traded text messages while I directed he and Danielle to the right spot.  I have to admit that I was wondering how Yaron was explaining all of these text messages to Danielle, but apparently she was used to it and had no suspicions about what Yaron was planning.

Yaron maneuvered Danielle onto the somewhat secluded path I had picked out, and I set myself up with a zoom lens ~60 ft away.  Danielle clearly had no idea what was about to happen, and her expression as Yaron pulled out the ring, and then pointed me out to Danielle, were priceless.

We then spent a very pleasant time together taking photos in Chihuly, and I also took them around Seattle Center, which they had not yet had a chance to explore.  we were not able to get everywhere in the time we had, but did manage to get photos outside the EMP and at the center fountain, as well as photos with the Needle in the background.

Here are some photos from our session, I hope you like them!