Alex and Jade | Cave Point County Park Proposal

In general, photographing proposals is the most logistically demanding shoot I do; not only are my couples typically not from the area, but half the couple doesn’t know the shoot is happing and I can’t communicate with the other half that does. In order to make a proposal shoot work, everyone involved has to memorize exactly where we have to be, at what time, how to spot each other in a crowd, and what to do if our plan suddenly changes. More time is spent planning a proposal shoot (making annotated maps describing primary and backup options) than actually shooting and editing the photographs.

Alex and Jade’s Cave Point proposal took logistics to the next level. The first hurdle was that neither Jade nor Alex had ever been to Cave Point before, and that was cleared pretty easily with one of my annotated maps and usual “Cave Point Proposal Plan” (I’ve done this quite a few times). The hard part, however, was that Jade wanted eleven of their family members (all who’ve never been to Cave Point before) to watch the proposal, Jade’s young son to deliver the ring box, and for Alex not to know that any of them were there. That’s a lot to juggle.

And we did it! Here’s how it all worked:

Since we had so any people to coordinate without being able to actually communicate, our whole plan was based on time. Jade took Alex to lunch in Bailey’s Harbor, and we timed it so the rest of us would know exactly when they’d leave the restaurant and when they’d arrive at the park. I met their 11 family members 15 minutes before and hid them in a small, often overlooked wooded trail where they could see the couple arrive but they couldn’t see them back (clever use of angles). When Jade and Alex arrived, Jade led Alex to a very specific rock (I had been shooing tourists away to make sure it was clear for their arrival), they looked down the coast in a specific direction while the family exited the hidden trail, Jade’s son secretly delivered the ring box, and the rest is history.

Plan well, and everything is possible :)