My job is documenting and then sharing the love stories of other couples. So, it’s such a new thing for me to finally be sharing something about my OWN love story!! So, here’s a little about me and Dean, and about our December 2023 Downtown Phoenix proposal.

Dean & Nicole’s Love Story

Some backstory. Dean and I are high-school sweethearts and have been together since 2010!! I was a sophomore and he was a junior and we met through a couple of mutual friends. We started dating really quickly after meeting each other (which is how things usually happen in high school, haha).

We both knew we wanted to marry to each other from pretty early on in our relationship, but were in no rush to do so. So, as you can imagine, after we passed our 5 year, 8 year, 12 year anniversaries and so on, we were constantly getting asked -by our friends, family, anyone who we told that we had been together that long- “WHEN ARE YOU TWO GETTING ENGAGED?!”. And we would always say “Some Day! Not in a rush!”. It really did come as a surprise to me when Dean proposed to me, because it’s not usually something I am planning for/expecting!! All that said, here’s the actual story!

Our Downtown Phoenix Proposal-Planning

I have a friend named Bailey who is a wedding planner (@baileyshea.co on Instagram). She reached out to me in Mid-September of 2023 and asked if I wanted to plan a styled shoot with her at a new wedding venue. Having seen the amazing photo of the Monroe Abbey on Instagram from other photographers, I IMMEDIATELY said yes. We started planning this styled shoot & picked a date for our shoot: December 18, 2023 (as wedding professionals in Arizona, October through November are usually our busiest season of the year due to weddings, parties and holiday family photo shoots, so that was the first date both Bailey and I were both not already working!)

We hired models, bought a dress, secured florals and rentals and all the other things we needed to make this shoot successful. Or so I was led to believe!! Turns out, Dean asked Bailey to help her plan this with him before she ever floated the idea of a styled shoot to me, and this was the plan they decided on that would keep my suspicions at bay. And they were right. I had NO IDEA any of our planning was not actually for our styled shoot.

Our Downtown Phoenix Proposal- Day-of!

Fast forward to December 18th, and Bailey texts me in the morning and asks if I want to take some photos of her and I before the models arrive for us to use for some joint marketing of her business and mine. I think nothing of it. She tells me what to wear (I think her exact words in her audio message to me were “I’m thinking creams and whites or neutrals.”), and I oblige, which is why I am wearing a cute outfit for all of the below photos and not my usual all-black jumpsuit with sneakers.

I get ready to leave my apartment, and Dean says bye like usual, wearing his usual athletic-type outfit and says he’ll be working from home for most of the night until I get home. Cool, nothing unusual there. I drive all the way downtown, meet Bailey outside the Abbey and she says our model couple is running a few minutes behind due to traffic (it’s a week before Christmas- normal) and asks me to walk with her to find a restroom a few blocks down. We take 15-20 minutes doing that and make our way back to the Abbey.

We walk in and find a spot for me to drop all my camera gear and she asks me to join her on a walk around the venue to decide where our “sweetheart table” set up will be going. I follow Bailey up the stairs to the top level, and she stops and says, “You’ve got it from here” or something along those lines and I walk out to THIS ↓

Who Photographs a Photographer’s Proposal?!

As it turns out, my OTHER friend named Bailey (confusing, I know), of Bailey Crawford Media, was waiting at my apartment for me to leave, and she picked up Dean and they sped (legally, of course) downtown to try and beat me there. I stopped for gas, which did help them gain some time on me, but they needed some extra time to park and get set up, hence the restroom-search that wedding planner Bailey took me on. Bailey Crawford was our lovely photographer, and it was so special to have such a dear friend of mine be the one to capture this special moment for us!!

Thanks for reading, thanks for being here, and I hope you have such a great time looking through all the rest of our Downtown Phoenix proposal photos!!! (There’s a lot. Just like I like it.)

Want me to photograph YOUR Downtown Phoenix proposal?? Shoot me a message HERE– I’d love to chat with you!! If you are engaged, but just starting the engagement session planning process, I have a FREE Engagement Session Guide to help you with that!