Crystal and Matt are high school sweethearts planning their September 15th wedding. We met this past weekend for their engagement photos.

Best friends since high school, then college came and Heather and Erik lost touch only to reconnect on MySpace. It wasn’t long before their rekindled friendship became love and they knew that they had found the ONE. When Heather decided to move to Florida with her parents, Eric knew that he did not want to lose her. So he packed a bag and moved with them.

Years later it was at the driving range where Erik surprised Heather with an engagement. The story from Heather’s point of view…
He was banking on the fact that I had pretty much given up on us getting engaged, after 4 years of being together. We went to the driving range on February 14, 2011. I had been doing pretty good with the range balls, but I hate using them and using my own balls is stupid because you don’t get them back. I started to get frustrated with the driving range balls and Erik handed me a ball like I use and said use this. I tossed it down and almost hit the ball. He said to me “really?” I responded with “What?!” To which he said “Did you even look at the ball?” And I said “Of course I did…Its a brand new Calloway ball! duh.” He just looked at me like I was insane, so I asked…”Can I hit the new shiny Calloway ball?” “No” So I looked at the ball again and I saw red on the white ball, which I knew shouldn’t be there so I asked “Should I read what’s on the Calloway ball?” “yes” On the ball was written – Heather will you marry me?

Heather and Erik are planning their October wedding in Fort Myers, Fl and decided to take road trip with their pup Gator for their engagement photos…

They met in college after being introduced by mutual friends.  At first things were on a friendly level and Karl would always try to get close to Christine, sit next to her, etc. One night he slipped his arm around her and the two have been together ever since. Christine was Karl’s first girlfriend and this July will become his wife.

The story of their proposal as told by Christine:

         It was cold. Really, really cold. We were staying at Karl’s mom’s house in Ponte Vedra around early January and we had no idea the weather would be so bad. But we got tired of being cooped in the house after a few days, so we decided to head to the beach. Since we didn’t have proper clothes for the weather, we ransacked Karl’s closet and ended up with a bunch of random, mismatched pieces: I wore his younger brother’s sneakers, his mom’s jacket, and a pair of sweatpants (whose owner is as yet unidentified); Karl wore an old pair of too-small cleats, gym shorts, his dad’s old jacket, and an old Christmas sweater underneath that. Just as we were leaving, his mom – huge smile on her face – asked us to bring her back some seashells. So we’re out on the completely deserted beach and it’s so windy that I have to pull the hood of my jacket up to keep my hair out of my eyes. It was miserable. But I followed Karl down the beach and waited while he’d kneel down to look at seashells. He’d hold one up and ask if it was okay before putting it in my pocket. Then he knelt down and said, “How about this?” while holding up a little wooden box. And then I said… “Wait…what?” Karl panicked and we just sort of stared at each other for a few seconds before I realized what was happening. He proposed with his mom’s engagement ring, a family heirloom, and pretty much took my stunned, smiling face as a “yes.”

Have I mentioned how much I love, love, love engagement sessions on the campus of the University of Florida? Maybe about a million times? Well, I do! I especially love when couples are recently engaged and so excited to photograph this joyous time. Crystal and Jim became engaged at Christmas time and were eager to get their photos done because Jim will be traveling for work this next year. This was officially my last session of 2011 as we wrapped up New Years Eve with their session.

Here are a few favorites!

Hearing all these stories is so awesome! Thank you so much for sharing! For the next few days- until Sunday, January 8th at 11:59 pm to be exact- you will have the opportunity to vote on which couple you think deserves to win a stylized engagement session with Sweet Serendipity Photography. This is a $250 value! And don’t worry- there are prizes for the runners up as well.

To vote for your favorite couple just chose their number and vote. You can vote once per day and are more then welcome to share this post with anyone and everyone to help your favorite couple win a FREE engagement session!

COUPLE #!- April and Jason
On March 21st 2011 my fiance, Jason proposed to me with the help of our cheerleading team. He & the other coaches collaborated together…. I arrived at the gym for a typical practice, but when I arrived the kids were nowhere! I asked Jennie (the other coach) where they were & she told me they had bad attitudes & were outside conditioning. I believed her because the night before was the same way. Well… after about 30 minutes she said “lets go check on them & see if they are ready to practice now”. So she led the way to the back door, and when we opened it all the cheerleaders were up in stunts holding a huge banner made from a sheet that read “April will you marry me?” On one side of that banner was a stunt group holding a “yes” sign, and the other side was a “no”. Jason was knelt down in front of everyone holding a bouquet of flowers & and engagement ring. I was SOOO shocked! How amazing that he got all 26 cheer cheerleaders, all 8 of our kids and all the coaches involved in the proposal… and nobody ever let on! I had no clue. He’s such a romantic ♥ (and I said “yes”, of course!)

COUPLE #2- Brittany and Kyle
Kyle and I got engaged on Christmas Eve…we love to go fishing and he needed a way to catch me off guard, so he hid my ring in a new tackle box that he wrapped as a gift. The ring was wrapped in a paper towel inside of one of the compartments, so I did not know what it was and acutually thought that it was some sort of cleaner…needless to say I opened it up and there was my beautiful ring! There were tears in both of our eyes and it was just perfect ♥ Now all the fun of planning

COUPLE #3 – Elizabeth and Nick
Nick and I became engaged on December 4th. The day before, Nick went to my dad’s office and asked for his blessing. When I came down to Gainesville the next morning, Nick told me that he had something to ask me and that he couldn’t wait any longer to make me his future wife-even though he didn’t have a ring. He went to Texas to spend Christmas with his family, so when he came home last night we exchanged Christmas gifts. After opening all of the presents (or so I thought), he got up from the couch and said there’s one more thing. He opened his backpack and walked over with a blue box with a silver ribbon. As soon as I removed the ribbon, I saw that the box was Tacori and he got down on one knee and proposed to me with the ring. I am still in shock (I wasn’t expecting to get a ring this soon)! But, that’s my little love story

COUPLE #4 Kalie and Lehman
My fiancé and I are high school sweethearts and have been together for 7 years. I’ve been a little antsy for a proposal but didn’t think it was ever going to happen. Christmas morning after opening our gifts at my dads house he told me that he wanted to show me what his mom got him. So we went out to the front porch and as I was walking down the steps he tugged on my arm and I turned around and he was down on one knee with this gorgeous ring! We are buying our first house together and closing in January and now I’m even more excited to start our lives together!!

COUPLE #5 – Ali and Brady
My son left clues all over town for Ali. It was her birthday so she thought it was just a birthday surprise. He even went to Panera the night before and arranged for a clue to be in her lunch order. She ended up being rowed out to an island on the Gulf, blindfolded, where Brady was waiting for her. He sang her a song that he wrote just for her and gave her a ring made out of the strings of his first guitar my father gave him when he graduated from kindergarten. The strings were specifically A string for Ali, B for Brady and G string for God. He braided them together to form a “three fold cord” which is the name of his song. We put the song on YouTube. You can see it there. Very romantic. She was totally surprised. They will purchase her ring together this weekend. Thanks! Proud Mom of the Groom:-)

COUPLE #6 – Austin and Josh
My fiancé and I are high school sweet hearts. After graduating from college in August I was getting a little antsy for a proposal since we have been together for 4 and a half years. August came and went and no proposal. I had kind of put it in the back of my mind after that. We flew to his home state of Texas December 1st, and since we flew out of Orlando we stayed the night with a friend by my alma mater, UCF. The night before our flight we went to walk around on campus. We walked around and then he just stopped, got down on one knee and asked. Of course I said yes! And the whole time my best friend, and maid of honor, was his accomplice! He went to my jeweler at home and designed this beauty himself! He knew I loved yellow diamonds, and I could not ask for more!

COUPLE #7- Laura and Steve
I’m actually writing this with the hopes of surprising my now fiancée. We were just engaged on Monday, January 2nd of this year. This was a very special day because it is actually the day that my father passed away. I decided that it was time to turn a sad day into a happy one. So I proposed to my girlfriend. How, you ask? Well, I thought it would be nice to do something private, so we went to Downtown Disney and rented a small boat to drive around. She thought nothing of it. Upon driving the boat back, I decided to stop it and told her that I’d like to dance with her. So we danced in the middle of our empty boat and I sang her, “I want to grow old with you”, you know, that song from “The Wedding Singer”. At this point, she was a bit curious. I rambled on a bit (as guys do) and then pulled the ring (which was fashioned out of her grandmothers ring) out of my pocket and dropped to one knee. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen as I looked up and told her I wanted to grow old with her and asked her, “Will you marry me?”
She said yes and here we are, planning the event that will secure the rest of our lives together.

VOTE HERE! And please share the link!

Rachel and Jay are getting married in May of 2012 in Orlando, FL where they now live but wanted to incorporate their Alma Mater into their wedding. They made the trek to Gainesville for a session with Sweet Serendipity on the campus of the University of Florida. We had a great time walking around UF and reliving college memories! Here are a few of many, many favorites!

Rachel and Jay it was so nice to meet some fellow Gators! I hope you had fun during our session and I hope the photos captured your UF days perfectly!

Spending an afternoon with Hanna and Kyle is almost like taking a step back in time… these two old souls are such a perfect fit together! While they both consider themselves to be old fashioned it is almost as if they have added a contemporary edge to it. When Kyle planned a proposal for Hanna he knew that it had to be more then just getting on one knee, so he arranged for his family to help him light candles on the beach in the shape of “marry me”. When Hanna saw it she was so surprised that she actually thought they were for someone else! When she saw Kyle on one knee, however, she knew that he was asking her to be his wife. The two are planning their wedding for May of 2012.

Since Hanna and Kyle are both students at the University of Florida there was no place more fitting then campus for their session. Here are a few favorites and a slideshow of images from their session!

As this publishes I am on the plane to Key West with Caitlin for her destination wedding at the Hyatt Resort in Key West. We met a week and a half ago for her and Jessie’s engagement photos on his family’s property. I don’t think I have ever been so in love with a location and both Jessie and Caitlin seemed so at ease in the relaxed setting. The evening light was nothing short of spectacular. Here are a few of many favorites!

Ashley and Justin met when they both worked at Publix in high school and they have been together ever since. This past summer they planned a vacation to Amelia Island and Justin proposed one evening while walking down the beach. Does it get any more romantic then that? Yes it does- Justin had her ring custom designed just for Ashley by merging two separate rings. I am certainly impressed! Ashley and Justin are planning their October 2012 wedding in Jacksonville at the Keeler Property. We met up in Jacksonville for this session and my sister was nice enough to not only lend us her property for photographs but also her horses!

And a slideshow…