Larry's BIG Surprise

Yesterday I realized why I love my job and why photography is such a big part of my life.

Larry had contacted Mary from Weddinggirl.ca who I work with on a lot of projects and will be working on a wish upon a wedding that one lucky bride gets her wedding given to her. Larry and Suzanne are from BC, Larry works for a large trucking company on the west coast and Suzanne is a nurse in the recovery and ICU in a hospital in Vancouver. Larry's idea was to bring Suzanne to a place he came 30 years ago and fell in love with in Niagara on the Lake. The gazebo in Queen's Royal Park has been a site of many different things form being in the Dead Zone as I found out one of Larry's favorite move ever to just and hour before the big proposal a small intimate wedding of two people with no one else but a photographer minister and his wife at 9 am to wittiness them share their love for one another. Larry wanted someone to come out of the water with a message in a bottle for his soon to be fiancee, Mary contacted me and I was on board from the words of surprise proposal. So with everything planed down to the minute we arrived at the park, me a little tired as I was way to excited to sleep the night before we waited, Matt Mary's fiancee got suited up to enter the water around 9:40 only to emerge 50 mins later for this very special moment.

10:05 Suzanne and Larry arrive a bit late but still in good time, Mary and I are "setting up" photos along the border of the parking lot where the happy couple has just arrived. Mary and i move around the park trying to be in front of Larry and Suzanne but trying not to be noticed to much, at one point I said to Mary while giving a play by play..."man these guys are in love" Larry being on a time schedule and having to be at the water side at exactly at 10:30 looks at his watch every few seconds and always at the right moments when Suzanne wasn't looking. Larry was great at getting Suzanne down to the beach at the perfect time, over looking the mouth of the Niagara River and Fort Niagara a scuba diver appears out of the water right in front of them, Matt with a story of swimming across from Toronto and a bottle he found at the bottom of the river with her name on it. Suzanne open the bottle and started to read the slightly moist message that Larry had written to her, as Suzanne read the last few lines Larry got down on his knee and pulled out the ring he had design for this special occasion and dropped the question. Mary, Matt and a few more people that were in the park waited for the answer, with a big kiss and a huge hug we assumed the answer was yes.

None of us had never met Larry and Suzanne till this moment after he popped the big question, but we have all made friends for life.

I look forward to their wedding in BC next year, and wish them all the happiness in the world!

thanks again to Mary from Weddinggirl.ca for arranging this first of many surprise proposals.

To see all the photos from the Big Surprize