Covert Ops with the Intern Army

This is about how Amit proposed to Alpa at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

In case you haven’t noticed – we kind of go all out around here. We fly all over the country now for weddings, we currently have 9 interns, and when a cool project comes along – we do whatever it takes to get the job done, and have some fun at the same time.

So when Amit contacted us and asked if we could secretly photograph him and his girlfriend as they walked through the Atlanta Botanical Gardens – I said yes!… and then he also explained that at the end of the walk he would propose to her. Oh heck yeah!

Knowing the difficulties I might run into – I enlisted the help of our Intern Army. A total of eight photographers wandering around, hiding in plain sight, photographing the couple as they walked through the garden. We had way too much fun with this. (And you can check out what each intern wrote about the experience over at the Intern Blogs.)

Check out Intern Team One: Niki, Brett, Sonya, and Raven.

Check out Intern Team Two: Amanda, Carrie, and Megan.

I even bought us walkie-talkies so that we could pretend to be spies/covert ops even more. Besides – this sort of thing takes a carefully orchestrated plan of action. We arrived early so I distributed maps to everyone and showed them the route that the couple was going to take. After memorizing everything, we all burned the evidence and broke off into our separate teams and our starting positions.

Raven & I found our position on the roof in front of the entrance and kept an eye out for the subjects. When we saw them coming from the parking deck we used our walkie-talkies to notify the other teams. (Did I mention that we were having fun?)

For the first half, one team was going to be in front of the couple and the other team following behind them. Halfway through the walk, the teams would switch. This was so that Alpa wouldn’t keep seeing the same people photographing them – of course the goal was to not get caught photographing them, period. The best way to do that was to hide in plain sight.

Of course – sometimes you can’t help but get too excited and giddy and run away laughing… right Niki?

But having so many photographers working together REALLY helped when they entered the indoor gardens. I followed them halfway through the building and then Raven picked them up for the other half. It was relatively close quarters and without the switch, Alpa would have surely caught us… or she would tell Amit to beat up the creepy photographer.

Eventually, they made it to the rendezvous point. Where Raven was tasked with presenting a portable DVD player to show Alpa a short little movie that Amit had made for her with the help of friends and family – basically asking her to marry him… and then he got down on one knee.

We are honored that Amit hired us for this job – and the Intern Army definitely had A LOT of fun. Thank you and congratulations Amit & Alpa.

Engagement. Photos. Atlanta. Botanical. Gardens. Ideas. Creative.  Photographer.