Casa Loma Engagement Proposal and Photo Shoot

Enjoy these beautiful engagement photos captured at Casa Loma in Toronto. The story behind the images is also interesting and I will share it here. A few weeks before the special event, the groom called and asked me if I did engagement photography. As Toronto wedding photographers, engagements are an integral part of what we do and of course I said yes. The groom mentioned something intriguing: he wanted me in fact to document a live engagement proposal, followed by a quick photo shoot. Despite the fact I had never captured an engagement proposal live before, I jumped on the opportunity and said yes immediately. Interestingly enough, the groom wanted to propose at Casa Loma, which had been on my bucket list forever. Despite the fact photography is mostly about light, a beautiful location, especially a castle, always helps. As such, on the special day, I armed myself with two cameras and a few lenses and I headed towards Casa Loma. Unfortunately, the bride and groom were nowhere to be found. They were travelling from Kitchener to visit the castle as tourists. I wasn't sure what was going on but maybe 30 minutes after out initial meeting time the groom's brother called and told me they were stuck in traffic. The biggest challenge for us was to communicate without the beautiful bride knowing what was going on. After all we did not want to ruin the proposal. When you do live events, there are many things that go wrong. In this case, Casa Loma closed before the couple arrived, so we had to photograph in front of the castle the whole proposal and engagement shoot. Speaking about limitations when it comes to creative liberty. On the bright side, after the castle close, the couple had no issue finding a parking spot. The brother of the groom introduced me to the couple and pretended that I was a colleague of him teaching wedding photography. Everything worked like a charm and I only had to give the groom a cue so he could propose at the right time and in the perfect spot. Now, as you can imagine, even after closing, there were plenty of tourists roaming around the beautiful edifice. When the lights and the time was right I was supposed to bend and tie my shoe laces and that was the spot where the groom would have to propose. I found a location in front of Casa Loma where I could have unrestricted view of the scene but I was very nervous because any second, one of the hundred tourists around could step into the frame and ruin my shots. Meanwhile, I was taking touristy pictures of the place, trying not to raise any suspicions. Fortunately, things went smoothly and the groom's brother took care for the curious tourists. The beautiful bride said yes and was super excited to see the massive diamond ring on her finger. In retrospect, I wish I used the wireless capabilities of my camera to send her a few photos so she could post them on instagram. After the proposal, we immediately started shooting on the grounds because the sun was almost setting and I wanted to achieve a list of images I prepared for this shoot. There was one in particular that I was very keen to achieve but unfortunately we had to move to a different location as it involved red smoke. I'm sure the security guards would not be too happy to see that. Enjoy this beautiful collection of images and if you like them, make sure you follow us on instagram and check at least a few other galleries such as Chateau le Parc, King Edward Hotel, Liberty Grand, One King West and Storys Building weddings.