Cranbrook Gardens Proposal in Bloomfield Hills, MI - Christina + Carlos

As a wedding photographer in Southeast Michigan,

I am familiar with dreary winter skies. I’m looking at one right now and daydreaming about warmer times and places, wishing it was June instead of January. I’m turning my heat up and looking at my electricity bill and crying. Basically, if you live somewhere warm and you’re reading this: I don’t like you very much.

Wow this blog post is really getting away from me, let’s try again:

This post is about an engagement/proposal session that happened in 2022,

but I never did a blog about it and I’m not really sure why because it contains so many amazing images and sparks so many things that I want to talk about here because I think they are important.

First, and this is where I got off track with the weather, this session took place in March, which though technically still spring, was pretty brown and dreary. Would I rather Carlos have contacted me in June to do this? Sure, but life doesn’t work that way and who am I to tell anyone where and when to make big life decisions! It just doesn’t work like that for everybody (though there are definitely people who plan and prioritize for these things, and that’s great!). And I want to be clear that I would be lying if I said I didn’t like beautiful things and people and places, but I just don’t like any of those things more than I like authenticity. I like photographing what is real, and I like normalizing the beauty in these real things. I talk about this a lot, and you will hear me talk about it more, but I just think the more you try to control things as a documentary photographer, the more you’re doing your clients and your art a disservice. And you might think it’s weird for me to be going on about this but I just want to clarify: there are photographers out there who do this kind of thing. And I’m not saying they are wrong for doing it, just saying that it’s different and that it’s something that should be an intentional choice but that I think most of the time isn’t intentional at all. I follow a lot of really successful photographers that market their work emphasizing that they are documentary and that they shoot candid, but then yell at a couple during a sparkler exit and tell them where to stand, where to pause and kiss again, and then sometimes even tell them to go back and do it again. And if that was your wedding day, do you think you’d be thinking about the magic of your wedding day when you look back on those images later? My guess is that the story you’d tell your kids would be '“yeah, we had to do that several times to get that shot.” Like actors on a movie set. The final result looks like magic, but what you had to do to get there was frantic and messy and stressful.

All this to say— my goal as a photographer is to truly let my clients be themselves and live those moments to the fullest, without worry that the pictures will somehow suffer for it. And the trust they put in me to prove to them that completely abandoning all expectations in photos will actually produce ones that are even better, and that will stand the test of time and make them feel exactly the way they did in that moment. More about my approach here

So when Carlos said he was ready to propose to Christina in the spring/dregs of winter, I was more than happy to put on my winter gear and be ready to capture something really special that they will both remember for a long time (probably forever!), regardless of the lack of color in the Michigan landscape. This has made me forever adjust my expectations for weather + locations of future shoots. If its not important to my clients to shoot in golden hour and that time doesn’t work for their schedules, that’s perfectly ok. If I suggest it to them and it works, that’s great too! Good weather is good. Authenticity is better.

Second, the logistics of planning a proposal can sometimes be tricky and nerve wracking, and trying to coordinate a photographer to capture it all can seem daunting but in my opinion it is so, so worth it. It’s worth it for several reasons but here is the one that sticks out to me. Moments like this in life happen SO FAST and generally come as a surprise, so this is one situation in which it might be really hard to live in the moment because you’re so shocked by what’s happening it can get blurry when you try to recall it later. The pictures will help fill in those mental gaps AND another bonus is that you are so distracted by what’s happening that you can be your authentic self without fighting the nagging thoughts that there’s a camera on you and you have to act a certain way. In a normal engagement session, it’s pretty typical for people to feel nervous because you have all this time to doubt what you’re going to wear or be nervous about what the pictures might turn out like— but during and immediately post-proposal, both parties are filled with such a happy glow that it’s honestly EXTREMELY hard to imagine a scenario in which the pictures don’t turn out GREAT. In a normal engagement session, this is what photographers are looking to fight against— nerves and expectations and anything that will keep you from getting into the love zone (that why we distract you with a bunch of weird prompts and make you run around and jump up and down— to make you forget that there’s a camera there.) Basically what I’m saying is that it makes my job, very, very easy. And it makes your job as a subject easier too, by taking off the pressure of feeling like you have to ‘act’ in love because you’re already feeling that love so hard your brain can’t make space for anything else.

It’s just a sweet ride on the Train of Authenticity, and love is our conductor.

So anyway, here’s what happened with Christina and Carlos:

Carlos had planned to get Christina out of the house under the guise of running some errands, at which point he would suggest they go for a walk in the Japanese Gardens at Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills. Unbeknownst to Christina, I would be hiding in the woods, waiting to photograph the proposal, after which they would join both of their families for a celebratory dinner. If you’re a soon to be proposer reading this— this is a great plan. It’s pretty simple and a great plan if you value family and want them to be a part of the day.

Because it was still very early spring and there was nowhere good to hide that would put me in an ok position to start snapping once Carlos got down on one knee, I decided it didn’t matter if Christina saw me or not because despite knowing Carlos for a while (we used to work together) I had never met Christina and to my knowledge she had never seen or heard of me. Christina definitely saw me but probably just thought I was some weirdo taking pictures of birds in a very brown landscape.

Carlos’ plan was to walk with her onto this tiny little ‘island” with a tree and some rocks, with the red bridge in the background, and that was where he got down on one knee. As he was doing it, Christina turned around and started to walk away, and at some point turned back around and realized what was happening. It was actually perfectly timed, and so cute. I was pretty far away using a 200mm lens, so didn’t hear what he said to her (which is great in my opinion because that part should remain special and private if you want it to), but it was very sweet to watch and I probably would have cried if my heart wasn’t pounding so hard from the adrenaline.

I also love this picture so much because I caught the moment that Christina finally realized the weird girl taking pictures of birds was actually there to photograph what just happened.

After the proposal, we walked around the Japanese garden and took some time to do a little mini engagement session afterwards. DO NOT SKIP OUT ON THIS IF YOU CAN HELP IT. This is the magic time that I was talking about earlier, and you can just see it on both of their faces in every picture. The happy glow. I love the pictures of them facetiming their families with the good news and sharing their joy with the people they love the most. (Thinking about it and looking at these next few pictures again actually made me cry lol help.)

It also must be said that some of these photos are the best I’ve ever taken, and I attribute a lot of that to the authenticity Christina and Carlos were about to bring, and also because the black and white photos just plain kick ass. The dreary background just gives the perfect contrast when desaturated and I’m obessessed with all of the black and white here because they are just so timeless and almost editorial without even meaning to be.

And finally, my favorite photo from the day. Just going to leave this here at the end, for a lasting impression.

If you’re interested in planning a surprise proposal, contact me today. I would love to help! Here are some ideas if you’re struggling for inspiration :)