I may have to do more proposals now...


When Ilya reached out to me in the summer about hiring me to take photos of him proposing to Tanya I immediately said yes! I worked with them at my previous job in San Diego. They're both amazing eye doctors and they made the work place so much more enjoyable!

The original plan was for Ilya to propose while they were on a trip in Colorado, hence why he reached out to hire me. We chatted back and forth on facebook for weeks with possible plans and how we would approach it.

It was all squared away when a wrench was thrown into our plans! He didn't have the ring yet!

He designed this lovely ring for Tanya, it was a one of a kind. But it was taking longer to get to him than expected, and wouldn't arrive until AFTER their trip! There was no way he could do it in the beautiful Rocky Mountains without a ring. So we decided that they would go home and he would propose in San Diego, and I would help them find a photographer.


I searched for a few photographers and had a small list going for him when I remembered, I was going to be in San Diego the following month for my best friends baby shower! I immediately messaged Ilya to tell him and we planned to have him propose that same weekend.


We decided on Sunset Cliffs because well...duh! It's Sunset Cliffs for gosh sakes! It's probably the most beautiful beach spot in all of SoCal. And very very popular in the summer. Thankfully, we we're heading into winter so it wasn't as crowded.

I flew in on a Friday night and met Ilya the following morning at about 7am to go over specifics of his proposal. And what do we find?

Fog.

So. Much. Fog.


That's the tricky thing about beach shoots, you never know if theres going to be thick marine layer or not. Of course more inland was beautiful and sunny, but as soon as you got closer to the water, it was thick fog. So much so that I could barely see the car ahead of me while driving down.

Once I met up with Ilya we laughed about the unlucky-ness of the events, First the ring, then the fog. But hey, it makes for a great story at least!

The spot we originally wanted to do it at wouldn't have worked with the fog so we found a plan B spot, which ended up being so beautiful and so perfect. I told him where he should stand so that I could capture her reaction from afar, and where I would stand and set things up so that he didn't block anything.

After that we grabbed some breakfast and went to pick up the flowers he ordered.

He. Got. 80. Roses.

80!

To say it was huge was an understatement. IT WAS GINORMOUS.


After I loaded the roses up in my car, it was time to say goodbye to Ilya until the following morning. I spent the day with my best friend and that night I went out and bought more props for the proposal set up.


The next morning, I woke up at 4:30am and drove down to sunset cliffs from where I was staying. On the way I grabbed a bottle of champagne from the local grocery store and headed back out.


I arrived at our spot and started set up. It took about a half hour to complete it, and I was super tired from walking back and forth from the spot to the car, but it turned out beautifully!


Once they arrived, Tanya was so surprised! Which means we were able to pull it off!

Ilya wrote her a poem and recited it for her, and then got down on one knee to ask her to marry him. She immediately said yes!

Once I was spotted, Tanya was shocked! She yelled "you're supposed to be in Colorado!".


We took a few more photos, popped the champagne in celebration, and they shared stories of how they met each other and how it all came to be. Tanya found out that a lot of her friends knew of Ilya's plan and she was shocked no one spilled the beans!


It was such a wonderful moment to be apart of and I wish them so many blessings in their upcoming marriage. They're great people and totally made for each other.


Proposals are definitely a lot of work but SO much fun to plan out and capture! I will totally jump at any opportunity to do another one!


Xoxo,

Amanda