A Late Night Marriage Proposal in Tangletown

Last night at 7:00 at night, after a long day of moving boxes and furniture (Our new place has THREE floors. Good grief.), the phone rings.

Me: “Hello?”

Voice: “Hey Laurel, this is Aaron. Alyssa and I are shooting a wedding, and I can’t get the Pocket Wizards we borrowed from you to work. Also, I bought a ring today and I’m going to ask Alyssa to marry me tonight over a late dessert. Should someone be there to take pictures? What are you doing tonight?” Wait, what? Did you just ask me a technical question and a romantic question in the same breath?! What?! WHAT?!

At this point, I may have squealed a little.  I probably jumped up and down a lot.  Alyssa is one of my good, good friends. She’s a photographer with a successful studio over on the other side of the lake, and makes AWESOME pet portraits to boot. I couldn’t wait. I felt like an expectant father waiting outside the delivery room (or what I THINK one could feel like. I was paralyzed with excitement, and for 2 hours I watched the clock while sitting in a bony chair (Remember, just moved. No couch yet). Literally. Watched. The Clock.

After a string of sneaky texts and covert voicemails, we had our plan. He was SO excited, talking a mile a minute, saying the cutest things (faster than usual, and this boy talks FAST! I saved the messages for you, Alyssa!!). So… when the time came, I parked outside Tangletown’s lil gem of a wine bar, Eva, Twittering hints and teasers of what was about to happen.

Then it came. The text that said “1 minute warning.” I jumped out of my car so fast, I barely noticed it was pouring rain.  The plan was that I’d have to shoot through the window- if Alyssa were to see me, it would all be over- she’d either know something was up or invite me over for dessert. SO, here I was, 10pm, by myself, in the rain, shooting like a Peeping Tom through the fence AND a window. Creepy- that’s my middle name these days.

And then the ring came out on the table. And lots of sweet looks and smooches. After a few minutes, I began to wonder if Aaron even remembered I was outside with all the excitement of the hearing the word he’d been waiting to hear for months (YES!). As one last surpise, he pointed out his personal Peeping Tom, and Alyssa flipped when she realized I was outside the whole time!!

Congrats you guys. I am so excited you found each other, and even more excited that I could be there to document such a wonderful memory for the two of you. Seems I may have found the favorite part of my job… proposal photography.

p.s. Alyssa… I’m watching Craig Ferguson while typing this. And he just said “OOHlala!”