A sweet Los Angeles engagement session by
Heather of All Trades is on the blog today! With photos taken at the Venice canals (in LA, of course) and at the beach, this shoot sure looks like a lot of fun! Thank you Heather for sharing this shoot with me!
How the met: Maricela and I met in June 2010 while both interning for a record label. She was attending John's Hopkins at the time and was in LA for the summer with the intent to return to school at the end of August. Having just graduated college myself in May, I had just moved down to LA to pursue a career in the Music Industry. We worked together at events and meetings, and after the first month I found out that she was single. During one of our company events, she made it known that she really wanted to go dancing, so after the event ended, a few of us went out, and we danced all night. We starting hanging out a lot after that and went on a few dates, which mostly consisted of us walking the Santa Monica Promenade and beach, and just talking a lot. I knew that she was going to be moving back to the East Coast in August, so we had agreed to enjoy each others company until she moved back, and we would keep in touch. Of course it never goes as planned. Mid August came, so Maricela had to go back to school, which was really sad because we had spent such quality time together in such a short period of time. We agreed to keep in contact and over the next few weeks talked at least two to three hours a night. She used to fly a lot with Southwest, and she found out she had a round trip flight with their rewards program. She asked if I get a few days off of work to go and visit her and I happily did so. I flew from LAX to Baltimore September 9th, 2010 and that night I told her that I loved her. We visited DC over the weekend and just had an amazing time. Over the next few weeks we really struggled with not being able to see each other, and November 17th, 2010 she decided to pack up her things and move back to LA to finish school and we have been together since. We consider September 9th our anniversary.
The proposal: We both share a love for the beach, so I wanted to incorporate that into the proposal. I live in Marina Del Rey, only a few blocks from the Venice Pier. My plan was to take her there at night and line the pier with candles, and at the very end of it make a circle with flowers in the center. We took a walk to the beach one night so I could scope it out and the pier was actually really dirty and smelled like homeless people, which totally foiled me plan. I decided to decorate my apartment instead and invite her over. I decorated the perimeter of my living room with candles and lined the coffee table with them as well. In the center of the coffee table I had flowers, a large white gift box with a card, and champagne. When she came over, she just thought we were celebrating my dinner cooking skills. We ate dinner first in the dining area, and then after I invited her to the couch to open the gift and card. I had to make sure that she sat to the left of me. I instructed her to open the box before the card which she did. Inside the box was a CD for her of some of our favorite artists (it was basically a distraction gift). Then I gave her the card and told her to read it very carefully. I had written a long note on the inside about how much I loved her and how amazing she is. At the very end I wrote, "P.S. turn around and look at the top of the window." She read the card and as she got to the end she started to cry because she loved what I wrote. I sat waiting for her to read the last line, but she seemed to not even notice it. I pointed to it for her to read, and she immediately turned her back to me to look at the window. At that moment, I had hidden the ring beneath the couch and got down on one knee to wait for her to turn back towards me. After a few moments she turned back to see me down on my knee with the ring in my hand. I proposed to her and she accepted!! This happened on May 4th, 2012.
