This engagement session is featured on How He Asked and Borrowed & Bleu! YAY!
Meet Stephanie and Daniel:
I had so much fun with these two! They are SO cute!! I must have said “that’s soooo cute!” at least 30 times during their engagement session haha Stephanie and Daniel first met at Willingdon Church in Burnaby, so they wanted to shoot their engagement session there and at Deer Lake Park, where Daniel proposed! And oh my goodness do they have an awesome proposal story! It would be too difficult for me to write it all out for you, so here is Stephanie’s version (it’s a must read):
We had known we wanted to get married this July, so I was wondering how he would keep the proposal a surprise with the date coming up so soon – but he went above and beyond!!
On the Tuesday night he called me and gave me a list of four different bags to pack, each including different outfit changes. He told me to have them packed and ready to go at any moment. On Wednesday he told me to check my email – he had sent me a romantic poem that mentioned I should bring Bag #2 to our youth group that night. After youth, he gave me another poem that led us to Starbucks. The next poem led us to Deer Lake, which is one of our favourite spots to go. When we parted ways at the end of the night I was definitely excited – when would I use the next bag? What would we do next? When we said goodnight he gave me two envelopes – one was bulky, the other had instructions that said to open it Friday morning at 10am sharp.
I opened the first envelope on Friday, which had a poem instructing me to grab Bag #3, and skytrain to Broadway station where I could then open the bulky envelope. When I got there and opened it, inside was a set of car keys! Daniel called me and directed me to where he had parked his car. On the dashboard was another poem and a map with directions. I drove to our favourite coffee shop and there he was 🙂 For the rest of the day we followed different clues and poems that brought back precious memories from over our years together. As the night was wrapping up I really felt as though he would be proposing – we were in my neighbourhood and everything, so it would be so convenient to go and tell my parents right afterwards!! Plus, he had made it extremely clear that he had plans with his family the next day, so if he didn’t propose tonight he wouldn’t be back until Sunday – and that was just too far away, in my opinion! However, it started to snow and he had to drive home safely, so he promptly left – without proposing!! I went to bed feeling more and more curious.
The next morning I got up to do homework, and who should walk into my kitchen but Daniel! He made my entire family a beautiful sit-down breakfast before whisking me away on another adventurous, clue-filled day – with the help of Bag #1. Finally, after surprising me over and over again all day, we arrived at Deer Lake around 10:30pm. When I got out of the car, Daniel blindfolded me and led me down a path. When he took off the blindfold we were on the boardwalk, which was lined by red and white lights and were also in the trees all the way down to a dock. The dock was lined with lights as well and on it was a lighted canopy, a couch, an electric heater, an ipod/speakers, and a thermos (I found out later that he had rented a generator in order to do all of this!). We sat on the couch looking at the still lake, bundled up in blankets he had brought and sipping hot chocolate he had packed in the thermos. He got out one last envelope and read me a fairy tale he had written about us, from the time we first met all the way until the present moment (covering about 3 1/2 years of storyline!). Then Daniel put on some music and asked me if I wanted to dance. We danced for a couple songs and when he went down to turn the music off, he got down on one knee and pulled out a box from his back pocket. The box had the most gorgeous ring I had ever seen in it! (Turns out Bag #4 had been a decoy to make me think he was proposing on Sunday!) He proceeded to tell me how much I meant to him and why he wanted to spend his life with me – and he asked me to marry him!! I said yes!!
We got engaged on Saturday January 14 ☺
SO cute right!? It makes my heart all tingly haha
For their engagement session we started inside Willingdon church first.
Both Stephanie and Daniel want to go into full-time ministry so it only made sense that they get a few photos with their Bibles 😛Thanks to the lighting guy at Willingdon for making this next shot happen, I am SO happy with how it turned out.
Stephanie and Daniel work with the children in their church, so we thought it would be fun to get a few photos in that area.
It rained all day during their engagement session, but I wanted to re-create that night Daniel proposed a bit (blanket, hot chocolate, etc.) and so after taking photos in the church we braved the rain and got some awesome shots outside in the exact place where Daniel got on one knee!
Some Notebook-style kisses 😛Â
Stephanie and Daniel; you are such an adorable couple and I couldn’t be happier to be shooting your wedding this summer! 🙂
PS Thanks to Abbye for letting me borrow her lovely knitted Afghan blanket! And thanks to my wonderful friend Rebecca Houweling for assisting me!