It was a rainy day in Sydney CBD when Aeriel and Josh joined photographer Ash of Candid Chaser for a moody, urban engagement session. The vision, was inspired by Pinterest! “Pinterest made me do it” laughs Aeriel, “Plus I wanted to do things a bit different. Our pre-wedding photoshoot will be matching our theme already so I thought for our engagement photo, we’d make it a bit different. Something out of our comfort zone and something people don’t go for usually. And, we are both awkward in front of the camera. We couldn’t do too much lovey-dovey so I looked and prayed for someone who could maybe focus more on taking candid shots. Like we wanted to do something different but still make it natural and chill. We love the photos so much! We are grateful for Ash! He made the images in my head come to life and even better!”

After meeting at church, and building a solid friendship for five years, Josh decided to take the leap and pursue Aeriel, the rest, as they might say is history with Josh popping the question on Aeriel’s birthday earlier this year. She tells “Josh proposed on my birthday this year. Josh and I have been talking about getting married for ages, like months into the relationship. Although it wasn’t a smooth and perfect start for us, it was quite challenging actually – lots of crying and prayers on my part and also on him. But praise God we’re here. But yes, it wasn’t like it was a complete surprise when he finally asked me. We always knew it would happen but I just didn’t know when, where and how we would do it. And I have to say, I was becoming impatient the last few months prior hahaha but God is good, He knew His timing. Josh asked just at the right time.

He proposed at our wedding venue actually at Summergrove Estate! It was perfect! They pretended that we were scheduled to visit the venue but my gut was telling me it was coming and happening, a birthday surprise and all haha. He tried so hard to keep it a surprise but I knew him like the back of my hand, plus my mum and sisters were so obvious hahaha they were all stressing and panicky but looking back now so much love I felt that time. All the efforts for making it happen.”

“True love is unconditional and sacrificial. Our love for each other has grown deeper and has taken root over time” shares Aeriel. “We’ll forever be grateful to God for bringing us together. We always say we love each other unconditionally, so we can’t really give reasons (this is coming from the experience that we’ve literally seen each other at our worst, physically speaking, character-wise, circumstances etc.)
I heard this from a sermon, if you can give a reason as to why you love someone, you are loving them for those things but when those are taken away, would you still love the person the same? Love is built-in time and sacrifice, not on reasons. I love that Jesus is at the centre of our relationship.”

“I am so grateful for Ash! We both are grateful for him” raves Aeriel of the couple’s photographer. “He didn’t make us awkward at all. He just let us be ourselves and play around. He did guide us here and there, which was great but he focused on letting us be and just took as many real moments as possible.

We preferred that too, especially since it was our first time getting a professional photographer. Ash was amazing! He is!”