Chelsea & Brendon
Chelsea and Brendon’s original wedding date was set for August 8, 2020, but due to COVID-19 they made the tough decision to “pull the pin” and postpone it to early next year. They chose to do an engagement shoot (with their wedding photographer, Kitty from Lily & Twine) the moment they decided to postpone their wedding as they really wanted to mark that day in a special way. The original wedding date was special to them because of the numeric sequence and auspicious numbers in Chinese culture. Below, Chelsea and Brendon share their engagement story and how their engagement shoot unfolded.
We became engaged in a simplistic family picnic with our fur baby. After seven years of dating and Chelsea thinking it will never happen. I (Brendon) had thought of a grand plans to propose such as the cliché New Years eve, or hot air balloon flight but realised if I had committed to a such a gesture Chelsea would have suspected something was up. So I had decided to organise a Sunday picnic at one of our local parks. I spent all morning getting things in place (e.g. secret photographer to capture the moment, location etc.) whilst Chelsea was none the wiser in preparing the food for the picnic.
We arrived at the park which was extremely busy with other events and families which hid the secret photographer well. Once I had helped setup the picnic, I told Chelsea that I was going to take Tilly for a walk to ‘calm her down’ where we walked far enough for me to slip on a bandanna asking if ‘mummy would you marry my daddy’, and to Chelsea’s surprise and delight I was down on one knee after she realised what the bandanna had said.
The thing we love about each other is the little quirks that is unique to each of us that only each other notice and understand. For example, Brendon playing and signing the same song on replay over and over.
When the day of our engagement shoot arrived, things were looking a bit concerning as it had been pouring rain the night before. During the morning, the rains was still on and off however we still held out hope and went out to purchase the goodies in readiness for the picnic and in the process grabbed a bite at a local café.
It was about 12pm we finished having lunch and the weather situation had not improved in fact it had got heavier with rain. We had organised with our beautiful photographer to meet up at 3pm as such we were still holding out hope and constantly checking the BOM radar.
As 2pm approached, we got a phone call from our photographer Kitty (of Lily & Twine) to say that things were not looking so good with the rain continuing, grey clouds everywhere which left us with the options of having postponing, choosing an alternative location with shelter or hoping for a small miracle. As Kitty knew how special the day was to us she wanted to do something and worked frantically to look at other potential locations and had decided there was other possible alternatives but that would be going away from what we envisioned of a natural scenic backdrop. We decided to give it to 2:45pm to make the decision whether we postpone or move it to another location.
In that 45-minute window there were some expletives and small meltdowns as we didn’t want to change from the natural scenic location or not doing something to mark the day. We were starting to feel extremely disappointed as how we alternatively wanted to celebrate the day was now not looking possible as well. We still decided to get ready just in case things turned for the better and literally 15 minutes before having to make the call, blue skies had appeared, and the sunshine was out.
We received a phone call from Kitty and she had joked that a small miracle had happened for us with the blue skies and sunshine out with no rain on the BOM radar in site. Kitty was amazing and a trooper where we all raced to the location to ensure we can do the shoot and capture the spectacular last light for the time of the year.
The engagement shoot took place at Belmont Wetlands and a surprise secluded spot that we found on an unplanned adventure we undertook with our wonderful photographer Kitty.
We chose this location as we are adventurous people and love going for walks to explore new sights and nature. We found this location from a bike ride we went on one weekend.
The adventure was an ‘on the run’ decision we all made as we had underestimated the distance to trek in the original plans of having some shots in the wetlands and then proceeding to the beach dunes for a sunset picnic. We took a detour hoping it would be a shortcut to the beach and went on a bit of an adventure through bush and creeks (it was only small puddle of water from the rain but according to Brendon it was a creek) and through this found this hidden spot where we were able to setup our picnic and capture the gorgeous last light and sunset of the day. Although we didn’t find the beach, the secluded spot was a wonderful alternative where our brilliant photographer Kitty was able to capture some of the stunning shots (even though there were some dingo tracks in the area). Although we didn’t find the water, the adventure was a much more memorable moment as we trekked almost 10 kilometres during the day with a picnic basket, high heels, photography equipment and in pitch blackness by the time we found our way out of the bush and wetlands.
A very creative way to still celebrate love by doing an engagement shoot on the day of your wedding!