Sydney and Dyce met in Charleston while Sydney was a student at College of Charleston and Dyce was a cadet at The Citadel. Dyce remembered Sydney telling him about Pretty Place, a chapel close to where she grew up. When they made plans to spend Easter with Sydney’s mom, Dyce decided he wanted to propose to Sydney at Pretty Place at sunrise.

Pretty Place can be notoriously difficult to coordinate, especially for a proposal, where one person has to be unaware of what’ll happen there. When I talked to Dyce to go over a plan for the proposal, I made sure he was well aware of how crowded Pretty Place might be, especially since it would be a Saturday and the day before Easter. He followed my advice to get there close to when it opened, even though sunrise wasn’t for more than an hour, and he agreed that we should go take pictures at Bald Rock afterwards. Still, there were more people there than I’d ever seen at Pretty Place, everyone was standing up to take photos, and there was even a small praise band playing. Dyce and Sydney waited until more people had cleared out before they got in line to take pictures with the cross. Lots of people jumped up to take a photo when Dyce got down on one knee, but I managed to still get a photo without Sydney noticing me!

After taking some photos at the small overlook next to the chapel and in the trees, we drove down to Bald Rock, where there were a lot less people and there was a lot more space. When I took a closeup photo of Sydney’s ring, I noticed a date on her bracelet, which she told me was the date that she and Dyce started dating–super cool that she happened to be wearing it that day and it just so happened to be in a photo with her engagement ring!

Check out some of my favorites from Sydney and Dyce’s engagement at Pretty Place and Bald Rock!