I just loved getting to capture Sam and Mark’s surprise proposal at the LA Arboretum last Friday! Last month, I got an email from Mark, explaining he was planning on proposing to his girlfriend while they were visiting her hometown of Los Angeles. Mark isn’t from LA, he’s from New York and met Sam in New York when she moved there for law school. Since he’s not completely familiar with the geography of Los Angeles, I suggested the LA Arboretum might be a good place to bring her since it’s located in her hometown of Arcadia. I offered to get there early and scope out some areas inside the park and found this sweet spot with the mountains in the background. It was perfect!

So, you may or may not know this but when planning a surprise proposal, it sometimes doesn’t always go according to plan, as the main point of the occasion is to conceal that you’re going to pop the question. If she’s not expecting her man to do it, or at least not that day, anything she’d like to do can possibly interfere with the timing of plans her boyfriend has made for this occasion and is desperately trying to hide it while also trying to remain calm and keep his cool. It’s stressful! This sort of happened this day which caused us to miss the good light, sadly, and cut our session really short because it got dark so fast. No one’s fault! What was Mark supposed to do? – “No babe, we have to hurry and get to this spot right over here so I can ask you to marry me?” That obviously wouldn’t have worked. So we made the best of our time we did have and just scheduled a second shoot the following day which worked out very well because this gave them both an opportunity to coordinate outfits and actually prepare! Such a fun day spent with these two. Major congratulations to Sam and Mark!!!

-k