Surprise Proposal at The Maritime Park | Pensacola Family Photographers

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Jacob emailed me with the idea of surprising his girlfriend, Jocilyn, with a marriage proposal while I captured it on camera. It was also really important to him to include his (sure to be) future daughter, Joci’s daughter Ariya, in the session.

We went through several possible scenarios/ideas that, for one reason or another, wouldn’t work all that well. Logistics, timing, lighting, remaining inconspicuous…all of that had to be considered. Finally, we settled on the idea of just doing a family session where, at some point, he would pop the question.

Then a few days before the session, Jacob reached out in a panic saying that Jocilyn had flat out asked him if he was going to propose at our photo session! He wasn’t sure what to do. He told me how much she loves to be surprised and that she would be so disappointed to have figured it out.

So here was my solution. I told him to tell her that our session would only be a 30-minute mini-session. Then I would ‘end’ the session, but stop them on the way back to the car because I ‘discovered some pretty light and had to take one more picture of just the 2 of them’. At that point, we would have her daughter run into the shot with the ring. This had the added advantage of allowing me to perfectly position them and be totally ready for the moment.

The morning they arrived at the Maritime Park near Blue Wahoos Stadium was shaping up to be a perfect for photos. Jocilyn’s mom tagged along to ‘help’ with Ariya (but really to carry the ring) and brought a picnic basket full of snacks for the toddler (and flowers and champagne…sneaky!).

I went thru the motions as I do for every family session. We captures lots of super sweet shots of this little family-to-be. And then when the sunrise was just beginning to get really beautiful and glowy, I looked at Jocilyn and said “Ok, our time is about up. Do you have any last requests?”.

She said no and we started our walk back to the cars. I stopped her where the sun was glowing thru the trees and said “OH WAIT! We didn’t get a picture of just you and Jacob and the light is so pretty here!” Her mother called Ariya over asking if she wanted a snack and stooped down to pull out the ring box as I posed Jacob and Jocilyn and began snapping away.

As I stepped back, Ariya ran in to give the ring box to Jacob and he got down on one knee. When it was all over Jocilyn said she was so surprised. She said she kept thinking it was going to happen and then was really confused and disappointed when I called the end of the session.

Success!