Brian Gross Photography: Paula & Phil:(Get) Engaged! - A San Ramon Engagement Session

My brother and I are just 3 years apart (he's younger) and in a lot of ways we are very similar. We both have shaved heads. We both quote movies and old TV shows in 80% of any given conversation we may be having. Uh, we are both, ummm...awesome? I don't know. We're brothers, we grew up fighting and now we are friends. Similar in a lot of ways but also different. So very different, lol.

A little while back my little brother(Phil) called me and told me he had purchased "THE GIFT" for his girlfriend Paula and planned to propose somehow on or before Christmas. He was also very distracted because his paramedic certification test was just 4 days before Christmas and he had to spend all of his time outside of work studying. Talk about a big week. He stopped by my house to drop off the ring so any snooping people whom I won't mention AHEM*PAULA*AHEM wouldn't find it and ruin the whole surprise. We talked about some possible scenarios and different ways he might do it. All I could think of in my head was, "I NEED TO PHOTOGRAPH THIS SOMEHOW!" Paula has been trying to get Phil to take pictures together for a long time and we were supposed to get together to photograph them with their two dogs (Olive & Scout). That ended up falling through before Christmas because of some scheduling conflicts so we came up with the idea that we would tell Paula we were going to take their photos(on Christmas Eve no less) and that would be my gift to them. The plan was at some point we would tie up the dogs to just take some photos of the two of them together and when the moment was right I was to find a reason to walk away and then he was gonna do it.

When the day came I was nervous so I can only imagine how he felt. I picked a location I recently found that I knew would have no chance of anyone else being around. We all showed up, everything went pretty much exactly to plan and I was there to capture the whole thing! BAM. ENGAGED! The next part of the equation was how to break the news to my parents. The decision was made to print and frame a photo(which you will see at the end)and have my mom open it later that night when we would all see them for dinner at their house. Remember folks, this is all still Christmas Eve.

Now, my mom is not known for her lackluster reactions to news of this nature. Quite the opposite, actually. When we broke the news that we were engaged, she screamed and cried with joy. When we told her we were going to be having a baby, pretty much the same thing. She gets embarrassed by it but truly it's the most sincere reaction and we all know it's coming..and I had my camera ready. So there is the story of how my brother became engaged...and hopefully some payoff images at the end with my Mom's reaction. =)

If you stuck with me through all that, here are some of the images from our "session". Enjoy!

Congratulations Paula & Phil!!

-Brian