When Amy Azzarito Of Design Sponge and Jorge De La Barra offered a free, styled engagement session for SMPers, we of course jumped at the chance to get you pretties in front of the camera. Well, the winners have been chosen and their sessions have been captured, and it’s safe to say they are gorgeous. We’ve been waiting in the wings to share the pretty with you all, and couldn’t be more excited that today we can finally let you in on all the goodness right here.
From Design Sponge…Couple One This super active couple -Heidi and Scott actually met at a Crossfit gym and hit it off as friends. Eventually, they realized that they liked hanging out just as much outside the gym as inside. Scott crafted an elaborate and personal proposal. He dragged Heidi to the gym for a work out with their closest gym friends. At Crossfit, all the workouts are named and this one was called the “Amazing gRace” (a little pun on one of the exercises named Grace) and one of Heidi’s favorite shows.
Scott had involved all of their friends into the proposal and had planned the workout to be a scavenger hunt with different elements. After the first workout, the couple headed to their car and drove to the clue location “Go back to where it all began”. In the years, the couple had been dating, the gym moved locations. So they drove to the original location, Scott parked the ran, got out and ran around to the side of the building. He came back with a bright teal green Vespa. Heidi had wanted a Vespa for nearly a decade (since she lived across from a Vespa dealership) and was over the moon about her gift.
The couple road the scooter to the next location where they found their best friend pretending to be Phil from the Amazing Race complete with a bottle of champagne for their “Toast or Roast” road block. After they completed the activity, Heidi was sure that Scott was now about to propose, but instead they got instructions to drive to the closest trail for their next clue.
Once at the new location, Scott took out a small speaker and played their favorite song and the pair walked to where their friends were waiting. A friend acting as Phil continued with the game and told them that they were “the last team arrive, but it was a non-elimination leg”. Scott then turned and proposed to while their friends quietly walked back to a picnic area they had been busily setting up while the couple scooted around town.
When I heard this story, I knew that we had to include the Vespa in the couple’s engagement shoot. Heidi wore a dress from Lovely Bride and paper artist Michelle Bablo made a couple of fun signs for the couple. She also made some celebratory streamers for that all-important Vespa. The couple have two rescues dogs and they wanted to include one of them in the shoot so Homer joined us all at one of the spots that Heidi and Scott visit most summer weekends -the historic Nathan Hale house in Connecticut.
From Design Sponge...This pair was over-the-moon about the prospect of starting their life together so we shot their engagement in Prospect Park, which just happens to be right around the corner from their apartment. This park is an absolutely magical place to shoot and after a long winter indoors, it was just what the doctor ordered. We discovered new locations around every corner. The fantastic team from 2h flowers, toted buckets of flowers into the park, scouted out the perfect branch and created a little hanging flower backdrop. Emily, at Lael Cakes, made us a stunning cake for a picnic setup. And we had one final surprise for the couple – their favorite saying is “Jackpot”! (As in, I really hit the Jackpot when I found you.) So we enlisted Michelle Bablo to help us make a sign to celebrate the couple’s good fortune. What a fun magical day in a favorite Brooklyn spot.
Photography: de la Barra Photography | Styling: Amy Azzarito Of Design Sponge | Flowers: 2h Flowers | Cake: Lael Cakes | Bridesmaids' Dresses: Lovely Bridal Shop | Historic House: Nathan Hale House | Paper Art: Michelle Bablo