THE COUPLE’S STORY:
HOW THEY MET

On November 23, 2012, Gabriella was Black Friday shopping with her brother and a couple friends at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, MD. Around 3am, she headed over to Abercrombie & Fitch to snap a pic with one of their handsome shirtless models.

On November 23, 2012, Lance was making some extra cash as a shirtless greeter for Abercrombie & Fitch at Montgomery Mall. Around 3am, after 4 hours of standing outside the store taking pictures with customers, he was about to take his break when he saw a beautiful girl walk into the store.

Lance decided to stay for one more picture. Gabriella, the beautiful girl, walked over to Lance, the handsome shirtless Abercrombie model, and took a picture with him. “You’re really pretty,” Lance said to Gabriella.

Gabriella and Lance ended up making small talk later in the day and eventually exchanged numbers. They met at the local Starbucks that Sunday and completely hit it off. They spend hours talking about hobbies, music, family, life goals, and how they both “weren’t looking for a relationship,” and realized that they had lived 10 minutes away from each other nearly their whole lives.

On February 8th, 2013 (Lance’s birthday), the two people who “weren’t looking for a relationship” started officially dating. Fast forward to exactly four years later and, on February 8th, 2017, Gabriella’s Shirtless Abercrombie Model,

THE PROPOSAL
(as told by Gabriella)

February 8th, 2017 was Lance’s birthday and also our 4 year anniversary of dating. Lance and I had dinner reservations at 7pm for a “fancy dinner” with friends in Gaithersburg and I was told to meet at his apartment beforehand so that he could give me an anniversary present.

I arrived at his apartment at 6:15pm, when Lance informed me that we NEEDED to go to Boyds, the town in which he grew up. “Can’t this wait for another day? We’re going to be late!” I said.

Lance insisted we go. On the way, his friend (who I had not met before) was with us and started asking a lot of questions about how we met, how long we’ve been together, where we grew up, etc. when Lance brought up how we grew up “across the lake” from each other and how he gave me a promise ring on the lake 3 years ago. His friend seemed intrigued, and asked if we could go see the spot while we were in the area.

Upon reaching the end of the branch-filled, overgrown dirt road to our spot on the lake at Black Hill Regional Park (“Lance, it’s not too far, why don’t we just walk?” I said), I see strings of lights set up. Lance hops out of the car and starts setting up a projector and pulling up a screen that was set up in the trees. My heart starts pounding (“He’s going to propose….no he’s not, he just said this weekend that we aren’t ready…”).

After much technical difficulty (and if you know Lance, you’re probably laughing right now), Lance finally shows me a video he made with clips and pictures of him surprising me over our four years of dating.

But then he tells me that there’s ANOTHER surprise (see picture), but that he left it across the lake at my house. So he gave me a scope, I looked across the lake, and (after 10 minutes of confusion and trying to focus the scope) see a HUGE sign that says “WILL YOU MARRY ME?” as the song “Marry Me” by Train, starts to play. I quickly turn around to see my future fiancé on one knee, ring in hand, asking me to marry him.

—————–BEHIND THE SCENES REMARKS DURING FILMING…

Behind the scenes: CINEMATOGRAPHER REMARKS
I was coming from a wedding shoot at taneytown, MD(12/8 – friday) and originally scheduled this engagement the next day(12/9 – saturday). As the days approach, we encounter some possible hurdles.

1. Snowy forecast on the day of, 12/9/2017 – saturday
2. Coming tired from a shoot, the day before.
3. Cold weather – makes your hands numb, and shakey

Upon knowing that there is a possible snow fall at a late day’s notice via the weather channel, Lance and Gabby gave me an option to opt out, and reschedule the engagement shoot on some other days. I look at this possible “HURDLE” as an opportunity. I’ve always dreamed of capturing an engagement video during a snow, but it will be very difficult to time a shoot like that, because only God knows/controls the weather. I had a vision that the snow would provide an excellent background as we film’s Lance and Gabby’s love in action.

Despite of being tired and super cold, the passion took over, and I love every minute of the process. Providing the best for my clients has always been our goal.

I will stop here for now, and continue this blog some other time. – Thanks for reading.