Woohoo! I'm Engaged!!! :)

This may just look like an ordinary picture to you, but when someone asks me, "what's the most amazing moment you've ever captured?" i believe this might just be it! This shot is not just any man looking down at the ring he's about to give his love, this is Paul Bennett, my love, my everything - smiling as big as the moon right before he looks up to ask me the big Q! If you wanna know how exactly i got this shot and how my amazing day went with the most incredible man of my life, read on....

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Sunday: 12.23.07

Oh my goodness, I would never expect today - "his day" to be THE day! That's why he did it, such a little smarty pants! Today was Paul's birthday, our day at The Getty Center, our Sunday off, the perfect day...

We had a day at The Getty Center (an awesome museum in LA) planned for over a week! We definitely have to plan our days off together since we're both crazy busy. This day worked out perfect, right before the holiday, we had two more days reserved with eachother as well.

We got a late start after cleaning and picking up last minute Christmas gifts, we finally arrived at The Getty Museum around 3:30pm - we had one hour til sunset. Now that I look back, i realize he had this day planned from the beginning (minus all my lolly-gagging, which he should know by now, to always leave a ton of extra time:)). His goal was to relax, get down to the gardens to watch the sunset together and ask me to marry him!?!?!? Of course, my mind wondered and thought of about 10 thousand other things to do on the walk down there, I even caught myself taking pictures of rocks, yes rocks...how does this man put up with me!? :)

We get down to the gardens and of course, the ONLY time I ever want a few pictures taken of me, is this time. He patiently takes them as we claim the bench with all our camera equipment. He shoots a few of me, i hate it. No wonder why i'm behind the camera, so i take the camera from him and say, ok, sit down, i'm taking a real shot of you for the website. He takes a minute to get something out of his camera bag before he sits, not thinking anything of it, i'm still shooting to get my exposure just right for his headshot. He sits down in front of me and I I shoot "the shot". I don't notice til I look back up from the screen what he was doing. I get my nervous giggles going and say, "What are you doing!?"(i'm such a blonde), he looks up with tear-filled eyes ( I then knew this was serious) and says, "I'm asking you to marry me...will you?" After all this worry about a ring, i don't even look at it, and say "Of course!" Hugging and sharing tears of joy, i realize this is it! I am so happy! What a moment.

We both sat there - silent - with speechless smiles, and unfathomed feelings, overwhelmed with joy, hopes, dreams and reality, as we watched the most amazing sunset we've ever seen, knowing this - was the beginning of forever.

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The Ring: Ok, don't freak out - the center of the ring isn't a diamond :) It's a beautiful "Aquamarine" (blue) stone, i wanted this, to be different and to put our money towards the wedding. Oh, and we don't plan on having our wedding til Dec '09 or Jan/Feb of 2010 so we can get our business' going full-throttle and have the destination wedding we have both dream of... AND I have NO CLUE who will be our photographer :)

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