Around these parts she’s known as our LBB extraordinaire, but today our dear Melissa – also the voice behind Yours Truly – is sharing a look inside her very own engagement. It’s a day at the sea made for two captured by Rebecca Yale Photography, and the images that follow are unbelievably gorgeous. Read on for the Groom-to-be’s proposal recap, and peek back as Melissa talks invites with Wedding Paper Divas!
From Rebecca Yale Photography… I was so incredibly honored when Melissa asked me to photograph her engagement! We shot on the gorgeous Crane Beach on one of the last beautiful warm days of summer as the sun set behind us and turned the sky and ocean around us the most beautiful shade of pink. Melissa and Shawn were such a pleasure to photograph! I adore engagement sessions because they are such a wonderful opportunity to capture some real moments of this unique time in your life of being young and in love and just being yourselves. Melissa and Shawn could not have been more genuinely in love and they were so sweet with each other the whole shoot, which makes my job so fun – and hello supermodel alert – I felt like I was on a fashion shoot on the beach with these two stunners! We were having so much fun we shot every inch of available light as the sun set around us, and luckily didn’t get in too much trouble for staying out on the sand after dark, because I just couldn’t stop shooting these two!
From the Groom-to-be… After dating Melissa for 8 years, I decided it was time for me to buck up and finally ask the woman that I so dearly adore to finally do the honor of marrying me. So first things first, I started backwards planning on how I was going to pull it all off.
Since we’re both scuba divers, I thought it would be amazing to propose underwater. We both love the ocean, we live only a couple miles from our local beach and in the summer, we’re usually on our boat when we have free time. The first gift I ever gave her was the conch shell we included in our engagement photos that I found while scuba diving in Turks & Caicos for my marine biology course in college. So it only seemed fitting to do it by the water.
With my parents having recently retired near Palm Beach in Florida, I planned a getaway to visit them and everything was set. I had my father do a recon of the best dive shop in the area prior to our arrival, to say the least, but unfortunately the rough seas that week didn’t cooperate, so I had to switch to plan B.
My parents took us to see The Breakers and my mother recommended to propose in the botanical garden, which was beautiful, but it didn’t feel quite like us, so I held off and waited to take her to a secluded area of Delray Beach we had planned to visit the next day. We found a quiet little cabana and within five minutes of setting up our spot, I asked “Melissa, will you marry me?”. You should have seen her face—she never saw it coming. It was perfect, tears of joy, and an absolute “Yes” with a hug and a kiss followed by a celebratory piña colada at a fun tiki bar across the street called The Sandbar.
Photography: Rebecca Yale Photography | Floral Design: Yours Truly | Hair & Makeup: LuxeBar | Blush Pink Dress: Revolve Clothing | Film Processing: Richard Photo Lab | Location: Crane Beach | Print: Julie Song Ink | White Sundress: Nordstrom