Rob & Tamika { Proposal }

Right before I left to have Sutton, I had the pleasure of secretly photographing a proposal at Botanica. How does a 9-month pregnant lady "secretly" photograph anything, you might wonder. Not easily.

Rob came to me in May and wanted to make an album of photos to surprise his girlfriend-turned-fiance with while he was deployed in Iraq. We plotted and schemed the best way to keep everything hush hush.

I arrived at Botanica before they did, and brought Adam with me as a decoy. We posed as a couple on a date taking photos of all the beautiful flowers. Once Rob and Tamika arrived, I put on my super telephoto lens, and started following them, keeping a safe distance. I didn't know exactly how or where the proposal would take place, so we scrambled to keep them in our sights at all times. At one point, they were walking towards us and Tamika even said a friendly hello. Little did she know...

I was able to snap the photos of the actual proposal through a trellis so that Tamika still wouldn't catch on. After she said YES and they hugged and kissed, they left. We waited to see them walk out the front doors so we could leave without detection. We waited. And waited. They weren't leaving, and all of a sudden, they came back into the gardens, and Rob walked right up to me! Que MAJOR acting on Rob and my parts:

Rob: "Excuse me, miss?"
Gina, panicking: "Uh, yes?"
Rob: "We noticed you had a camera, and we just got engaged, so we wanted to know if you could take our picture?"
Tamika, acting extremely embarrassed in the background : "I'm so sorry to bother you!"
Gina: "No, no! I'd LOVE to. Congratulations, that's so exciting!!"

So we walked over to where he'd proposed and I took a couple photos. I had to act like an amateur, so I even counted 1, 2, 3 before I took the photos, haha!

Ginger helped me design an album since I was busy having a baby, and while I don't normally do this, I thought I'd post the entire album for your viewing pleasure! (And props to Ginger for her mad design skills!)

Fast forward a couple weeks...Rob tells Tamika he needs her to run an errand for him. She comes in, is handed the book, and once she finally catches on, she exclaims, "That pregnant lady works here?!" Lindsey even got a video of her reaction so we could send it to Rob in Iraq!

Belated congrats to the happy couple!!