Colton + Emmarae

Oh gosh where to begin...I was sitting in a coffee shop when all of a sudden this girl with luscious locks walks in, oh wait, that's someone else's story. Whoops!

I met Colton while I was working at Starbucks, I had the ultimate pleasure of training him which was straight up righteous. We constantly made weird jokes to one another, exchanged odd innuendo on and off work, and occasionally participated in a googly eye contest. Then Emma walked in the door and rocked the nation. I have known Emmarae previously because she occasionally came in to Starbucks where we would talk about lots of movies and fun facts! I remember Cole came up to me and said "Hey I got Emmarae's number" and I'm like "Don't you mean Emery's number?", he's like "No, it's different then that", I'm like, "you sure?" he's like "Yea pretty sure"....anyway... the rest is history.  

Back in August I held a Facebook contest for a free shoot giveaway. I was happy to announce Cole and Emma as the winners because they have both supported me countless times throughout my ambitions of photography. I text cole that night to let him know and he texts me back saying he wanted to propose. Instantly I jumped off the couch and showed my wife Kara the text, out of an instant reaction and burst of excitement she decides to slap me, hmm ouch! The next day I met up with Cole to talk about his plans. Cole being excited and just anxious didn't really have a plan, just a ring, which by the way it was glow in the dark, get jiked (siked and jealous at the same time) So I offered suggestions and blamo! The deal was done, so after all the details I suggest we meet up at the same time the very next day with Emma so she is involved with other aspects of the free shoot. So, the very next day us three are hanging out talking about the day, though I was surprised about the proposal, I initially had some ideas on mind, which were some parkour shots. For those of you that do not know, Cole is a parkour junkee, and Emma is a bookworm, as you can tell by the first shot we exemplified them spot on!

Here we are, about a month later on the day of the shoot... We art out taking some parkour shots for fun, also to let Cole get out all of the butterflies, we all get 'em so I wanted to make it as comfortable as possible for him.  As we walk around the CDA resort I start getting anxious because I mapped it all out, I knew exactly where I was taking them and how soon it was coming to the big moment. About an hour has passed and we are all having a great time, we finally get to the location where Cole and I had previously decided he was going to propose. cole and I had talked about our code word, I look at him and say "Need a drink of water?" so he knows that it is his que to get his ring from Kara, who was holding on to the ring for him for the time being. While he was doing this I grabbed Emma's attention and pointed her towards the island where the "next shot" would take place, this was very nerve racking on my end because I kept wanting to say "When you get proposed to..." So I had to just bite my tongue and say "Go over there and think Vogue..." Emma is an actor so this was no problem for her. 

As they walked across the water stepping onto small rocks, I tried to find the most perfect position for me to be ready at any given moment. They could not hear me very well so I was waiting for him to do something awesome. Although Kara and I were in the same location as them, they were in their own little island, where it was just them, no one else. Perfect. And then, I got to witness the most precious moment ever, but that's there story to tell. Like I said, the rest will be history... 

Congrats to Colton and Emmarae! Love you guys!