This is the story of a secret proposal.

When Ashis (pronounced ‘ah-shish’) contacted me, it was because he wanted to plan the perfect proposal for his partner, Meenu, and needed my help to photograph it.

As a wedding and engagement photographer, the photos would be no problem. But the planning - well, for that, I recruited the help of Heather (of Bowtied Services).

Margaret and Vincent’s story is such a sweet one.

We met ages ago, when I was having a free giveaway for an engagement session. I think this was probably back in 2019, and definitely before the pandemic.

I chatted with the couple on Skype (back in the day this is what we used, believe it or not! I cannot imagine a time before zoom in my life, but there you have it)…

From the moment we started planning Maeve and MacKenzie's engagement photo session, I knew that it would be a really unique one.

The couple wanted to take me to MacKenzie's family cottage near Peterborough, on Stony Lake.

The only way to access this property, they told me, was by boat!

They were so sweet about this: Making sure I was okay with the boat ride, that my camera would be fine, and all.

Today I bring you the story of Nik and Kathlena’s surprise proposal.

What I actually mean is that it was a surprise to Kathlena, not Nik. It would be funny if it was a surprise proposal for both of them…. How would that even work?

Anyway, for this surprise proposal, Nik was the one planning everything.

He wanted to propose to the love of his life, and he wanted to keep it a complete surprise!

When we planned Andi and Tim's engagement session, there was one thing that was on the top of our minds.

We simply wanted make sure their two children could meet me and become comfortable with me before the wedding, so that they wouldn't be stressed out being photographed on their parents’ actual wedding day.

I think that's incredibly sweet: the way Andi and Tim prioritized the children, and included them in their engagement session that day.

So we did a lot of fun things, like visit their cottage in Prince Edward County. There’s a small trail behind the cottage, and just up the hill is a nice forest. We went for a walk up there for about ten minutes. Beautiful candid photographs don’t have to take a long time, you know.

An “Engagement Session” can be anything you want it to be.

I have no idea! Honestly, I thought I already had… but then when I was trying to show these photos as an example of what kinds of things you could do on your “engagement” session (otherwise known as a day in the life session around these parts), I couldn’t find it.

So anyway, Sarah and Oliver already got married, and we were there to celebrate with them, and we even blogged it (yay us!)

So this story takes us even farther back in time, to a very warm and mosquito-y day in June of 2019, just a few months before their wedding took place.