What’s this, an engagement session on a Wednesday? Oh, how we could not resist the sandy, beachside engagement photos of Clinton and Diego! In the spirit of The Coastal issue, Clinton and Diego joined photographer Anica Hofmann at Queenscliff Beach to mark their special moment in time.

It was a little swiping that brought these two together, the pair meeting on Tinder. In Clinton’s words ” Tinder was our beginning. For our first date, I wanted to show Diego my local area and go for a hike through the beautiful Bouddi National Park, almost eight hours and several missed ferries later we had to say our goodbyes. We never thought we’d see each other again, I was due to return to London for work and Diego was here on a student visa. Luckily for us, life had other plans.

Clinton popped the question to Diego on Christmas Day, though it didn’t quite go as planned! He remembers “After an amazing Christmas Day, we were on a late-night walk on the beach between the wharf where we first met in person and the place where we officially had the conversation that we were together. Diego was sitting looking out over the water and I said I was going to keep walking a bit. I was actually using seaweed to write “Will you marry me?”.

I remember walking back to him and saying I needed to show him something, getting down on one knee and proposing using a ring my nephew made out of loom bands. He hurried me back off the ground and I wasn’t certain he’d said yes. After an awkward two days, we spoke about it and he said “I said yes silly, but you didn’t even have a real ring”. I’d had the ring around two months but because it was still very early in our relationship I was waiting for the right time. I went and got his ring and asked him again. This time there was no denying his response, we were happy and laughing at how ridiculous the situation was.”

On what they love about one another, it seems for these two it is less about what they have in common, and more about what they don’t! Says Clinton “We are polar opposites, both dramatic and never seem to be at the same point at the same time. Saying that, everything with us just feels natural and easy. We both are the pillar holding the other one up, I can’t imagine loving anyone else!”

Clinton and Diego have many funny stories of their life together. “We shared a single bed the first six months we lived together” laughs Clinton. “We argue the same side of a debate and then burst out into fits of laughter when we realise we’re arguing about nothing. Oh, but one of Diego’s favourites would be when I got a little too drunk and a lady stopped to offer us money because I kept saying “Oh gosh, help me” on our walk back to the bus.”