The Red Door Proposal | Surprise Proposal | Brandi and Dave | Milwaukee | Happy Gnome Photography

Popping the question.  

Getting down on one knee.  The happy tears and joyful hugs.  

I love so many things about that moment when two people decide that they want to spend the rest of their lives together. 

When Dave contacted me to ask if I would help him put together the perfect proposal for one of my dearest friends, Brandi, my heart skipped a beat.  I am beyond honored that they allowed me to be a part of something so special.  I could talk about my experience all day, but instead  I'll let Dave tell you exactly what it meant to him to have a photographer there on that special day!

And stay tuned because next week you can read all about the experience from Brandi's point of view!

(The two love birds last fall.  I knew even back then this was a love for the ages!)

Dave's Proposal Story (As told by Dave) 

I had already started the ring design process before I had any idea how I was going to propose to Brandi. I kept thinking and thinking about how to do it and nothing came to me. Any idea I came up with just didn't have enough hook to it. I thought up of a bunch of marginal ideas, but nothing that got me excited. That is until I thought about a red door and its' place in both me and Brandi's story. Once I had the image of a red door and me proposing in front of it, the rest was history and the pieces fell into place quickly after that.

Ever since Brandi can remember, she's had a dream to have a red door on the front door of her house. Once she shared this dream with me, I told her that when we had our own house, the first thing I was going to do once the movers left was to go right out and buy her a red door for our house. Come to find out, a red door existed in my life too. While on a trip to the Milwaukee Zoo with our kids and my Mom, we drove to the first house I ever lived in. I was sitting in the front seat with Mom and Brandi was in the back. Mom was telling us the story of her and Dad's first house and she casually mentions that while it doesn't any more, when we had lived in it, there had been a red door on the front door. I immediately looked at Brandi in the rear view mirror, we smiled and our eyes welled up with tears. The red door had just become a "thing" for us.
When I got the idea to propose to her in front of the red door, I knew it couldn't just be any old door. It had to have character. It had to be unique. I just wasn't sure how to find this red door that I could not describe, but that I'd immediately connect with when I saw it. It was around this time, I brought Amy into the fold.

(Brandi and I in Vegas two days before Dave let me in on his plan.  I'm glad he waited so I didn't have to keep it a secret!)

I knew very early I wanted to have pictures taken of me proposing to Brandi. I wanted that moment captured because no matter how much I could remind myself to remember everything, I knew I'd forget details. And the details is what makes the moment.
At this point, I knew two things: I wanted to propose to Brandi in front of a red door and I wanted Amy to capture it all and the easiest way I thought to accomplish this was to walk into a photo shoot Brandi was a part of. This would allow Amy to prepare everything ahead of time to make the moment special while also preventing Amy from having to don her favorite camo outfit and hide in the bushes.
Amy loved the idea and was honored to be involved in the whole process. She also came up with the idea of going to her local ReShop Habitat for Humanity store to see if she could find any old doors. Despite me not giving her anything really to go on except for a few pictures from the internet, she found the absolute perfect door!

(this dusty old barn door was destined for bigger things!)

I was at work and received several texts from Amy that I didn't read right away. I knew Amy had planned on heading to the ReShop store, but I didn't have time to read her texts when they came through. When I had a moment, I read the texts which included a couple pictures of some doors Amy had found. One of them was an old barn door that I instantly fell in love with. The barn door was perfect because when Brandi and I had talked about getting married, one of the places we talked about having the ceremony was in a barn. I quickly sent her a text back and said that I wanted to barn door and she replied back, "good, cause I already bought it!". She knew the door was perfect and didn't wait for me to respond back and just went ahead and bought it. Come to find out that old barn doors are very difficult to come by, so to have that door there at that exact moment was not an accident. It was meant to be, which added to the significance of the red door.
I remember feeling so giddy that Amy had found that door and the whole plan was coming together. The next step was picking a red paint so Amy could begin the transformation. I stopped at Lowe's after work one day and picked out a color and Amy started working on the door. She sent me a couple progress pictures and I just kept shaking my head at how this was all starting to come together. Finally, I got the picture that the door was done and it looked remarkable! Turns out Amy went a shade darker than the color I picked out and it was absolutely the right choice. She distressed the door a bit to help add to the feel of the door and she did a perfect job. I cried happy tears seeing our finished red barn door. I couldn't wait to see it in person!

(The red paint I dripped on our garage floor will forever be a reminder to me of this very special project!)

Finally the actual day came and I was nervous about the actual proposal, but knew the details of the plan that Amy helped me put together would go off without a hitch. Amy's assistant came and got me from outside Amy's studio and snuck me inside while Amy finished up her shoot with Brandi and her other best friend Allison.
When I saw the red door in the studio, I about lost it. Amy had sent me pictures, but to see it in real life and realize that my soon-to-be fiancé was right in the next room with no idea what was about to happen about pushed me over the edge. We got the room set up and I went and hid in a closet in the room. As I waited in that crowded closet, my heart was racing and it would accelerate even more when I'd hear Brandi's voice. I kept checking my pocket every 5 seconds just to make sure the ring was still in my pocket. I had no idea what to expect cause I had no idea how Amy was going to set up the room and where Brandi would be when I entered the room, but that was 1 of about 1,000 thoughts going through my head at that moment.

(Both so beautiful.  And so clueless!)

I anxiously waited for my cue from Amy and when it came, my heart was leaping out of my chest. She came and opened the closet door and I walked around the corner and about fell over Brandi looked so beautiful. She had her hair and make up done for the photo shoot and I was not expecting that. It threw me off a bit, but not as much as her seeing me did. She thought I was working and then going to pick up our daughter, so seeing me there confused her. We hugged and kissed and then she asked me what I was doing here. I started to reach into my pocket and drop to a knee and that's when she figured it out. I said, "Brandi Michelle, will you marry me?". It took her a few seconds of choking back tears, but she squeaked out "yes" in the most adorable way.

After that, much of the next few minutes are a blur, but I remember a lot of smiling and laughing. The actual moment is over so quickly and so much of the details are lost on me until I look at the pictures Amy took. She did such an amazing job capturing the way Brandi and I look at each other and capturing the love which exists when we stare at each other. Amy captured the smiles Brandi and I only have for each other. She was able to capture what so many of our friends see in us that we don't. Now I know what that look is and Amy was able to capture it in so many photos.

I'm so grateful two of Brandi's best friends were there for this magical moment. It was part of my plan to have Amy and Allison there to share in this moment with Brandi. This was not lost on Brandi after she was able to start forming sentences again and she continued to express how much it meant to have them there.

The day and moment went perfectly. Amy took care of so much for me that I don't know as if I'll ever be able to say "thank you" enough. She captured so many of the little details of that moment which are forgotten or missed and now they're preserved in pictures for our grandchildren to see. What a gift to be able to show our grandchildren the moment we got engaged and to see the look in our eyes at that moment. Not only will I cherish our proposal photos for the rest of my life, future generations of our family will cherish them as well. I still look at our proposal photos and they make me smile seeing the happiness and love which existed in that moment. Those pictures warm my heart and bring tears to my eyes. Not only do we have the pictures, but we have a red door which serves as a reminder of the life we began when I got down on one knee and asked her to spend the rest of her life with me.