Shereen and I met each other through our parents. Through the typical Indian I-need-to-get-my-child-married grapevine, our parents found each other and showed interest. My mom showed me Shereen’s picture and asked me what I thought. Little did I know, but my life would be changed as soon as I took a look at that one single photograph.After getting to know each other, I quickly figured out she was the one. Talking to someone on the premise of a possible wedding from the get-go sort of takes out a huge element of surprise. Regardless, I wanted to surprise her. On one of my trips to see her, I arrived a day earlier and scouted out places that I wanted to propose at. I decided on one, Prairie Creek Park, in Richardson, TX. There is a creek that runs through the park that ends at a waterfall at one end. She loves the water and I wanted to make sure that element was there when I proposed. I arranged with her sister and best friend to bring her to the park on the day of. When they arrived I was sitting on a bench with my back towards her so she wouldn’t figure out what was going on. However, she recognized me right away. Now Shereen is a bit shy and doesn’t like too much attention. Her best friend had to yell at her to keep walking toward the designated area. I figured the jig was up and got up and turned around and smiled and beckoned her over. I talked to her and led our down toward the waterfall. Along the way, I had remote control LED candles light up around us as we walked. We arrived at the center with a pile of rose petals arranged in a circle and blue hyacinths surrounding us. Blue is her favorite color. I spoke with her about how we met and how we grew to love each other and that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my without her. I proposed and she said yes.I’m from NY and Shereen is from Dallas. We arranged to have two photoshoots to show both sides of where we were coming from. For the NY shoot we wanted to see the NY skyline as well as something artsy. We wanted to capture beauty in the middle of the hustle and bustle of NY. East meets Southwest. Cold meets Hot. The day of our shoot was cold, freezing and snowy. It was Valentines weekend and we had to endure a Polar Vortex of all things. That weekend was one of the coldest in NY within the last 100 years. Shereen does not like the cold, but she trooped through it.We chose Priyanca Rao Photography, because we loved her style of photography. We looked at a lot of photographers but Priyanca’s portfolio was an amazing array of artistic shots that focused on the couple while highlighting the beauty of their surroundings. Priyanca was easy to work with and promptly responded to our questions. She was a pleasure to work with on the shootThe best part of being engaged is knowing that one person you’ve found that you want to spend the rest of your with also shares the same sentiment. You begin to plan your future and you realize all the “if-only” possibilities you had in your mind until then will actually start to become reality. Things slowly change from “me” or “I” to “us”. It’s a great feeling. I have somebody that I can share my everything with and I also want that person to do the same with me.
