nehemiah + arianna | a fall proposal
nehemiah + arianna met in high school, fell in love and have been together ever since. nehemiah reached out to me months and months in advance to start the planning process (and with that much time in advance, I knew it was going to be a good one). he had been planning the proposal since february.
arianna had been living in yonkers, where they met, and nehemiah had to move to georgia for work, so they have been long distance.
to make this the ultimate surprise, he didn’t want her to know that he was in new york.
so, he made up a fake event — an event for arianna’s mom’s job — “an evening dinner for paramount at planting fields arboretum” so the whole family had a reason to get dressed up.
nehemiah worked with arianna’s boss to make sure her schedule for the week would allow her to be free and attend the “event.”
then came the big moves.
he flew from georgia to new york the night before the proposal with his family. however, a storm was rolling in + his flight got cancelled at midnight. there were no flights to new york. his only option was to fly to philadelphia, rent a car + drive to long island. he also had his + her family members + relatives fly in for the proposal. a family member even traveled from texas and was awake since 5am two days prior because of cancellations and delays. talk about a beautiful support system.
the day of the proposal, they had already scheduled to facetime each other + he was supposed to be at work. which he (of course) had already planned for + brought his uniform with him so she would think he was still at work in georgia.
when we got to planting fields arboretum, we quickly realized that the spot we had originally planned to do the proposal at was being utilized for a wedding reception. we had to quickly switch gears so i threw out the idea of arianna walking down a bush lined path where she wouldn’t be able to see him until she was super close to the end of the pathway, where nehemiah would be waiting at the end of the pathway for her. nehemiah loved the plan and honestly, i think plan b ended up better than plan a.
the next obstacle was getting her + her family from the parking lot to the specific path + arianna to walk down it by herself. thankfully, i brought samantha with me (who is my best friend and accompanies me on some shoots to take bts videos, help hold bags, fluff dresses + hold bouquets). she quickly became the “event coordinator.” she met arianna + her family in the parking lot, introduced herself as the event coordinator, asked arianna’s mom for her name, scrolled through a guest list excel sheet from her actual day job to “confirm their attendance.” she really sold the storyline. sam walked them to the beginning of the pathway where i met them.
i quickly came up with the idea to introduce myself as the “event photographer” + that “we are doing entrance photos of each guest, one at a time” + therefore walked with arianna down the pathway and got to see her second by second reaction as she turned the corner + saw nehemiah standing at the end of the pathway with a sign saying “will you marry me?”
after lots of tears, smiles, kisses + hugs, arianna quickly touched up her makeup with the help of all the women in her family and we went on to do their engagement session.
the engagement session was filled with all of arianna’s questions for nehemiah of what has been happening the past few months. the conversations went a lil like this:
nehemiah: “remember when i had to cancel our call cause ‘i was working late’?”
arianna: “yeah”
nehemiah: “i was actually ring shopping”
the afternoon was filled with blissful joy + euphoric energy.
truly enchanted + magical.
“one day you will meet someone who will see the universe that was knitted into your bones, and the embers of galaxies glow to life in your eyes.” - nikita gill
09. 09. 23
