Adventurous Disneyland Engagement | Disneyland Engagement Photographers

 

FROM THE BRIDE…………………….

Daniel & I met as next door neighbors in the summer of 1999. He was 16, I was 14. We took each other off the market almost immediately after meeting (09/07/1999). On December 22^nd 2007, Daniel proposed.   (Yippeeee!) We bought a house in the valley a year later. We currently live with two wiener dogs that we love so very much. Well, that sums it up… super excited for our upcoming wedding, I think we’ve waited long enough!

FROM THE GROOM…………………….

So I had planned this weeks in advance. I made a request to Vanessa’s boss a couple weeks before December 22nd to see if he would let her have the day off. I let him know what I was planning. After I was sure that she had the day off, I planted the seed… I mentioned that we should visit Disneyland during this holiday season because we haven’t been there in so long and they have all of the holiday decorations up; seed planted. I had already gotten the ring and I was keeping it in my office at work. I decided to go with a Disney proposal because that is the “Happiest place on Earth” and Vanessa really loves Disneyland and just about anything Disney related.  Some friends that I work with made some calls for me (Thanks Joanna, Jennifer, and Cindy) and got me in touch with some awesome Disney Special Events folks (Tom and Andris). They agreed to help me out as best they could. So I pitched them my idea and they said that they could make it happen.  I still hadn’t asked Vanessa’s parents to see if they would let me marry their daughter, so I decided to take Friday December 21st off to visit her parents in Chino and go to Disneyland after to do a walk-thru of how everything was going to go down. I could tell that everything was going to exceed any expectations that I had.  Back to the seed I had planted weeks earlier. The week of the event, Vanessa’s boss told Vanessa that she could take that Saturday off, which was crazy because it was so close to Christmas. Rather than question it, she decided to “get while the gettins’ good.” So she came home and told me that she had that Saturday off and that we should use that day to go to Disneyland. Seed had sprouted and started to grow. I played it a little, saying that maybe we shouldn’t go, or maybe we should go on a different day. So I gave in to her request to go to Disneyland on Saturday.

DECEMBER 22ND………….

We headed down to the park in the morning and stopped for breakfast at an IHOP on the way to the park where we had witnessed a couple next to us break up! I had the ring in my bag (ok ok… man purse) with a glass slipper that I had gotten the day before from Disneyland. When I got gas, I forgot that I left my bag by her feet on the passenger side. If she would have needed anything from the bag, everything would have been ruined.  We made our way to the park and everything started out as a normal day. We needed to be at Sleeping Beauty’s castle by 5:30 for the lighting ceremony. Special events roped off the area so that it could be just her and I. I had already been dark for some time and it was packed in front of the castle. I led Vanessa to where Andris and Katy were standing when Andris asked me “Are you two here for the reserved viewing?” to which I said yes. He opened the rope and opened the little fence to the grassy area where there were two chairs on the stones in the grass. We sat and waited for the castle lighting ceremony to begin and once it did-there was music and the castle lit up beautifully.

When it was done, Vanessa had said how beautiful it was and it would be cool if there was a princess up there. I told her that she was my princess and that I wanted her to be my princess for the rest of my life. As I said this, I had the glass slipper ready to go with the ring inside it and started motioning from my chair beside her, to my knee in front of her. I saw her face change from a smile to unexpected shock as my knee hit the ground. I presented the ring to her in the glass slipper lined with rose petals as I asked her if she would marry me. She said yes (“Of course”) as she started crying. While I was going down on my knee, the Disney photographer started taking pictures non-stop paparazzi style. Vanessa’s mom and brother saw the whole thing and came out of the shadows to congratulate us. We took more pictures in front of the castle before saying goodbye to Vanessa’s mom and brother.  We were escorted to our 6pm dinner reservation at the Blue Bayou restaurant and we had the perfect table next to the water. We ate dinner and discussed everything that happened. We finished dinner and were escorted onto the Lilly Belle train car that took us around the park while some of the park history was narrated by Andris. We had some time before the next phase so we were escorted straight into the Haunted Mansion. When we came out, we were escorted to VIP seating to watch Fantasmic. The show ended and then it started snowing. Everything was beyond my expectations, and now I get to marry the woman of my dreams.

Thank you to everyone who helped to spread the Disney Magic on our special day. Special thanks to Chris, Tom, Joanna, Jennifer, Cindy, Aaron Adris, and Katy.