“To the woman who wants to see the world, I see my whole world in you.”

John and Emily’s Old City engagement session was one of my favorites! This was my first time photographing in Philadelphia, and I’ll admit…this country girl absolutely LOVED shooting in the city, especially in Old City! From Elfreth’s Alley to the The Merchants Exchange Building – in addition to everything in between – I could not stop photographing these two!!

John and Emily are the most adventurous people I’ve ever met! Emily has been to about 20 countries and John around 5! Hello?! How cool is that!? John even SURPRISED Emily – YES you read that correctly – with a weekend trip to Paris in April to propose to the love of his life!!! (View their proposal video here and below!)

The forecast called for rain, but the day turned out to be absolutely beautiful! I think we had around 75 degree weather, which was perfect!! It all worked out perfectly!

Emily was looking for quaint, historic places for their engagement session, and Old City DID NOT disappoint! We began at Elfreth’s Alley – which is SO adorable! Go visit or attend one of their weekend tours! It’s the oldest residential street in America! I was most definitely in my happy place, and I think they were, too! As we were taking photos, so many people stopped to congratulate the two of them, which was so awesome to see! They received compliments and congratulations all throughout the day! Everyone was so happy for them! We even had a little boy say to me “You’re still taking photographs here?!” That put a huge smile on my face!

Following the Alley we walked over to The Merchants Exchange Building – which is only about a 5-7 minute walk! All of these places were super close to one another! Both locations were surrounded by cobble stone streets and just made you feel like you were stepping back in time!

I absolutely did not want my time with these two to end AT ALL! The way they are together leaves me speechless – they make you feel SO welcomed and loved!

John and Emily, I cannot wait for your wedding next June! You two are such a blessing to me!

How They Met

Emily and John met in elementary school when they were part of the same summer camp play! Since then, they knew of each other but never interacted much until the summer of 2013 when John graduated from college and moved back to New Jersey from California. He was about to move back to California indefinitely when Emily attended his going away party and they started talking again. About a month later they started dating long distance, which lasted almost two years!

The Proposal | As Told By the Bride

“Fast forward almost three years into our relationship…

It all started for me on a Wednesday in April, I came home from work to find John sitting in my room with his camera. As I put my stuff down, he asked “how much do you trust me?” Immediately I was on high alert, my eyes got super slanty, and I was just like “what?”A little background on John – I never know what to expect with him. He’s always sending me these crazy flights he finds or asking me to go skydiving, bungee jumping, etc. So he asks this and I’m concerned. He then proceeds to tell me he booked us a trip (I let out a huge sigh of relief when I knew it wasn’t sky diving). He hands me a packing list that even has the weather for where we are going. He tells me we’re driving and that he contacted my boss to ask for me to have a half day on Friday and a full day off on Monday. He leaves me in my room to get to packing and I am pretty speechless. At this point, no, I didn’t think that this trip was for a proposal!

So a day and a half of anticipation passes, every place in the area has passed through my head, and I land on the idea that we are going to Boston. It’s the most logical vacation spot in driving distance right? Except John isn’t logical.

We get started on our drive and I can’t tell you how crazy it was driving me not knowing where we were going. As we’re driving, I notice John is in the exit only lane for the Philadelphia Airport and he’s not getting out of it. So I say “uh, you need to get over” and he puts his blinker on (more lies!) but doesn’t change lanes. When he starts laughing and takes the exit, I start freaking out, all of my options I thought were possible all of a sudden double! Chicago? Seattle? Nashville? We’ve discussed so many places we wanted to go. As we park, he pulls out my Passport (shocking!) and then a boarding pass to Paris! This is the point where I was like, okay, he’s probably gonna propose. We flew there overnight and we landed in Paris early the next morning.

On Sunday morning, we woke up super tired. I thought about just throwing my hair up in a messy bun but John insisted that we were going to a fancy brunch (lie #50 by this point) and there were great photo opportunities. Our Uber drops us off at a place I didn’t recognize, Trocadero overlooking the Eiffel Tower, and we walk out to this beautiful marble plaza. John says he wants to get a perfect picture of the Eiffel Tower before the plaza gets busy. As he’s setting up the Gopro tripod (I still don’t know he’s about to propose) I just take in the beautiful site.

As I was taking in the site, I turned around and he grabbed my hands and proposed. Since it was so early in the morning, no one was around and it was such a surreal and beautiful moment. We stayed three days in my favorite city in the world.

The entire weekend was such a fairy tale, and I feel so lucky to have met the man of my dreams!”

**Read their entire proposal story on the Bride’s blog: Up & At Em**

**Watch the entire proposal video here: Surprise Paris Trip & Proposal Video | Videography by the amazingly talented @machajohn (the groom!)**