Chris & Selma
North Shore Maui, Hawaiʻi
Planning a Surprise Proposal on Maui
Chris reached out with a simple idea: propose to Selma somewhere along Maui’s North Shore and keep the entire thing a surprise.
Planning a surprise proposal on Maui is less about creating a complicated setup and more about making sure the location, timing and photography all work without giving anything away.
The real work started before the camera ever came out. I spent time scouting the coastline, looking at different angles, backgrounds, access points, light, and how each location might feel once they were actually there.
From that, I mapped out a few possibilities and built a simple plan Chris could follow without turning the evening into something overly choreographed.
The goal was to give him enough structure to feel confident while keeping Selma completely unaware of what was happening.
On the day, I arrived early, stayed out of sight, and watched from a distance. Once they reached the planned spot, there was nothing left to control. The proposal had to belong entirely to them.
Once she said yes, everything shifted.
The tension disappeared, the energy changed, and the rest of the session became much more spontaneous. We moved through the coastline without trying to recreate the proposal or force a sequence of poses.
Some photographs needed a little direction. Most came from simply paying attention to the way they interacted once the surprise was over.
That balance is what I enjoy most about photographing surprise proposals on Maui: doing enough planning beforehand so the important moment can happen naturally, then knowing when to step in and when to disappear.
For me, the strongest photographs came afterward, when there was nothing left to manage and they could simply be together.
