When we were scheduling Cheyenne’s bridal portraits we were naming a bunch of places and then all of a sudden it was like an ‘ah ah!’ moment and she suggested Daniel Stowe because it was where he proposed.
David always used to joke that when they got engaged, he’d just tie a string around her finger rather than messing with a ring. So it came around to Christmas time, and they were about to see each other for the first time in 6 months, since he was stationed in Utah and Cheyenne was staying in NC to continue to go to school in Chapel Hill (it was the first time they had been separated for that long).
She said it seemed like a pretty normal day, he came over and picked her up and went to some stores and got dinner together, then they went to Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden for their Christmas lights. They walked around for a bit and then he pulled Cheyenne to the side and handed her a box. It was a ring box that contained a lil string tied in a circle, he asked if she remembered what that meant, and pulled out another ring box as he got down on one knee and popped the question!
Once I heard that story I knew our bridal portrait session was going to be so sweet and it was meant to be done at the same place! I normally shoot around sunset but with the business hours closing sooner in the warmer months, that was impossible, but our morning session light turned out just perfect.
When we both arrived we quickly noticed they had the Chinese Lantern Festival set up. If you don’t know what that is look it up here. Just imagine all kinds of brightly colored light up displays of animals and structures. It was beautiful but it was a challenge to dodge those displays, of course we didn’t want that to distract from the beautiful bride in the images.
Cheyenne wanted to incorporate her grandmother’s wedding dress into her wedding or bridals since she was able to fit in it perfectly and it fit her blue color scheme so well! So at the end of her bridal portrait session she slipped into this 1950’s light blue dress and I was able to capture that sweet moment for her and her family. Head over to this post to see this flashback!