Huntington Beach Pier Marriage Proposal

What are the odds of running into a marriage proposal walking down the Huntington Beach Pier while you’re there just roaming around shooting?  Pretty remote, but that’s exactly what happened.  My buddy just purchased a new camera, so naturally he wanted to take his new gear out for a spin.  Since I live in Huntington Beach, what better place to shoot than Main Street and the pier?  While walking down the pier, we noticed 5 individuals dressed in black wearing white masks like the Jabbawockeez along the railing.  We stopped to take some pictures  of them, but almost as soon as we started doing so, they walked over to the middle of the pier to clear some space.  We thought “Oh cool, they’re gonna perform or something.”

They started dancing and right in the middle of their performance, they grabbed a young gentleman that was in the crowd watching with his girlfriend.  Having seen tons of performances likes this on the pier before, I didn’t think much of it since performers routinely take volunteers and/or include the crowd in their performance.  What gave it away that it wasn’t just another street performance was the fact that he started dancing with the group and apparently knew what he was doing.  At this point, I positioned myself in a good position to hopefully capture what I thought was about to happen.  Sure enough, it happened!  After having a few stems of roses laid at his girlfriend’s feet, the young gentleman got down on one knee…and she said “YES!”