Surprise Engagement at Navy Pier
Recently I was once again lucky enough to be a part of an emotional and touching proposal, with a fun and loving couple. This time the setting was Navy Pier, on a cloudy and cold Chicago afternoon. Fortunately, I think the chilly weather actually worked in our favor…on any other Saturday afternoon the pier would be swarming with people, but with this weather we had the place mostly to ourselves, allowing for more flexibility in capturing the engagement as it unfolded.
The shoot was a little trickier logistically than my recent bookstore proposal shoot. This time, I met up with Xing the day before and walked the Pier, scoping out potential locations. I actually hadn’t been there in quite awhile, and was surprised to find lots of good proposal settings. We chose our 3 favorites, and decided to make the final location call the next day, just before he would pop the question.
This turned out to be a very wise choice. When I showed up on Saturday, one of our favorite spots, the Crystal Gardens, was occupied…by a wedding! Apparently you can reserve the Gardens for events. It’s a beautiful setting, which is why I wanted to use it for the proposal, but I guess another lucky couple beat us to it. Good thing we had some alternates.
Since Xing and I were communicating via text message all day, we were able to call an audible, and choose one of our backup locations, with the skyline off in the distance. Here we had a bit more freedom, and I was able to keep my distance and stay somewhat inconspicuous thanks to the “Big Bertha” lens I brought along for the occasion. After Jia said yes, we took the opportunity to capture some impromptu engagement photos.
I have to say, these surprise proposal shoots are a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to scheduling some more soon!
