Surprise proposals

2020 is off to good start! Flying in the face of the threat of viral mayhem, this couple flew in from Texas to visit Montana, ski Big Sky and visit our nations first National Park. Unbeknownst to Jessica, Ben had much more in mind for their trip to Yellowstone Park. He contacted me about three weeks earlier to lay out the plan to propose and have it all photographed. This time of year visitors to the Park are few and far between, so it made it a little more difficult to pull it off without giving the secret away. In winter the majority of the visitors are fairly serious photographers hoping to photograph the wolves in the Lamar Valley, so I dressed the part! I got to the agreed upon location and post holed into the most scenic snowscape.
( I should have thought about my snow shoes!)

As they arrived and made their way across the snowy field, I photographed some of the scenic vistas and kept my eye on their progress to the place we had planned. It seemed that life stood still for a few minutes as they had private words and embraced. Then, the magic moment…

I’ll let my photos tell the rest of the story.

Harsh Vedant Kumar contacted me on short notice to see if I could meet he and his ‘wife to be’ unbeknownst to her, in the Lamar Valley. They were traveling here from Atlanta to see Yellowstone Park in the winter and Harsh was planning a GRAND SURPRISE! So I made a plan and pinpointed some scenic places we could potentially meet, then spoke with Harsh upon his arrival in Bozeman to coordinate our location and timing.

At this time of year many of the visitors to the park are photographers that are hoping to capture images of the wolfs and other wildlife. That made me a fairly normal person to see hanging around with cameras around my neck, and etc.

When I arrived they had gotten to the designated location a bit earlier than planned. So I grabbed my cameras and wondered out onto the snow covered boardwalk taking in the view and made some friendly ‘stranger’ small talk. Then Harsh pull the ring box out of his heavy coat and knelt before his lovely companion. Niru was overcome with tears of joy and then quick and repetitive “Yes, yes, yes, yes!!!” filled the air. ANOTHER GREAT SURPRISE IN YELLOWSONE PARK!

As the sun appeared and disappeared from behind the low lying clouds we drove to a few scenic places and captured some magical memories.

And one more detail, Harsh was so thoughtful that he secreted a few dresses from Niru’s bag at the hotel knowing that she might want some images in other than winter coats and snow pants. Good work Harsh!!!

Enjoy the view!