Amanda & Brandon's Engagement Session at Huntington Beach State Park

It was a brisk Wednesday night when I met Amanda & Brandon at Huntington Beach State Park for their engagement session. I had a blast hanging out with them and their sweet new pup, Kaiser!

Their engagement story starts with an “almost proposal.”

“Little did I know, Brandon had been planning the proposal for months before our anniversary. We had gone home to Maryland in August where he had asked for my parents blessing.

The next month, we had a planned trip to go to the Dominican Republic for a week. Before we went on our trip, we had met my dad to give him our dogs so he could watch them while we were gone. This is where Brandon got the ring he picked out for me in his possession.

The night before we were supposed to leave for the Dominican (Sunday), Brandon and I got into a car accident. After dealing with that situation for hours, we had gotten home where Brandon had received an email stating our flight in the morning was delayed! And this was at almost 11 at night. The next flight was leaving at 9am; but our connecting flight in Georgia was at 9:20… there was no way we were going to make our connector. If we had missed our connector, the next flight from Georgia to the Dominican wasn’t until Tuesday. Brandon called our airline and got us on a flight leaving from Charleston, SC at 7am; but returning to Myrtle Beach. SO then we decided we needed a rental car instead of driving one of our cars down to Charleston. We had to rush to the rental car place before they closed at midnight (we barely made it) and then we rushed home in order to pack.

After packing, we immediately leave to drive to Charleston. In the midst of everything, we didn’t have time to go to Coinstar to exchange all of the change we had been collecting for spending money. So we decided to do that at the Walmart right by the Charleston airport…and the Coinstar machine is broken! So we had no choice but to carry a 20-pound bag of change with us through every airport during our trip.

But after ALL of the mishaps, we finally made it to the airport and made all of our flights to the Dominican. During our stay in the Dominican, Brandon had planned for us to have dinner on the beach (where he was going to propose). BUT during that week, a hurricane decided to come through and shut down the resort and ruin his plans and not allow his dad and other family friends to make the trip. During the entire trip, the ring was either right next to me in the backpack or in the suitcase where some of my items were!

So Brandon (and a lot of our friends) had to keep this a secret for months until our anniversary in December!”

“Brandon proposed to me on our 4 year anniversary at The Biltmore. The house was decorated for Christmas and was amazing to walk through and look at. After we walked through the house, we walked to the front lawn where the large Christmas tree was set up. It was just the two of us standing there looking at the tree and talking. The family members who were with us were off to the side behind us taking pictures (of us but I thought they were taking pictures of each other). Then Brandon says that he wants to take a picture of me standing in front of the giant Christmas tree (we didn’t get to take a lot of pictures inside the house since there were so many people). As I’m standing there, I’m waiting for him to take the picture and then I hear him say: “You can turn around now”. And he’s behind me down on one knee. I don’t even know if he asked me “the question” but I know that I didn’t even give him an answer, I just immediately started crying and fell into his arms. Then he goes “I take that as a yes?” and I just shook my head yes.”