The romance between Cam and Sarah was a long time coming….in fact so long that I’ve only got the time to tell you about their engagement, and not all about them (otherwise we really will be here until their wedding in 2015)!
They had met in Primary School after Sarah had moved to Cam’s home town of Auburn at age 8. She remembers the moment well; ‘it was a Spice Girl themed school assembly and Cam asked me up on stage. We were primary school sweethearts and even shared our first kiss behind the shed at Auburn Primary School…with a bit of peer pressure from my older sister Rachael!”
Despite the early flirting, they remained as ‘just friends’ throughout high school and their time afterwards after moving to Adelaide, often spending time hanging out in their large friendship group from the Clare Valley. “It wasn’t until one night at a mates 21st where we were both attending (that we got together)”. Cam had to leave early for another party and before he left he made sure he found out where Sarah would be later, and let her know he would ring her to find out. “As he left, he kissed me gently on the lips instead of the cheek like usual. It was very out of the blue and left me completely dazed!” Cam left Sarah to lament over what the kiss could possibly mean with her friends when a mutual friend let Sarah know that Cam had confessed he had a soft spot for her. “This gave me the confidence to meet up again with him later and dance the night away….plus sit with him through a 4am tattoo! From then on we were inseparable.”
The effort that Cam went to for the engagement was epic. “I had been planning it since May, when I stated talking to Sarah’s sister Rachael about engagement rings. For weeks Rachel told me to stop joking around because it wasn’t a funny subject!” (She was very serious that he was to ‘put a ring on it’….as she was about their first kiss). He continued to text Rachael and went to a number of shops for ideas. “I used floss to wrap around Sarah’s finger one night when she was asleep to get her size right, and even had Rachael use her rings one day to get the sizing!” He spent days on the internet “to become a diamond professional” so he knew that he was getting the perfect stones and not going to be ripped off. Smartly he went to Bell and Brunt to get the best of the best. “I changed my design 2 or 3 times before finally being more than happy with the right design around the end of May.”
With the help of the Bell and Brunt team as well as Sarah’s Pinterest board in June, he spent 3 hours picking 7 perfect diamonds with the jeweller and decided on a halo design that he was going to give his beautiful bride-to-be on a camping trip – but finding a free weekend together was a nightmare. “After looking in our diaries at the beginning of August, we had only 1 free weekend for the next couple of months, so we locked in a camping trip for the last weekend of August.” It was a long wait for Cam, and a nervous week before when he was unsure whether he would still get the weekend off and the forecast was looking gloomy. “I left (the decision to go or not) up to Cam because he had organised everything, the kayak, sleeping bags, tent, wood for the fire and food.” The weather ended up perfectly for kayaking around the coast; on what turned into a magical day they saw seals as they went along and decided to stop and have a picnic in a cave before it got too dark.
Sarah wanted to get changed so Cam said he’d get dinner ready in the meantime. When Sarah walked around the corner a picnic with her favourite nibbles and food was before her. “I’m not sure if I tweaked just yet as I’d been asking to go on a picnic for a couple of weeks with the nicer weather.” Cam asked if she could get the drinks from the esky. “I looked and there was a bottle of Moet in there, so I asked if he wanted champagne with the picnic. When I turned around with the bottle in my hand, Cam was down on one knee holding something incredibly sparkly!”
It was a definite yes from Sarah. They spent the night drinking the Moet, watching the sunset and seals playing in the water right in front of them, dinner by the campfire and a bottle of port to keep warm. “All the while we were giggling and in the happiest place. Needless to say, I was a bit tipsy and felt it on the kayak back the next morning!”
With an engagement so epic their wedding is going to take a lot to top it, but for Cam and Sarah, that’s not what it’s about. “I am looking forward to making a special day about Sarah and I, and sharing our life moments, past and present, with all the special people in our lives….enjoying the next phase of our story.”
It really was a pleasure to join this fun loving couple for their engagement photos. It was a fiery sunset before a storm that finished off the photo shoot, and a blazing end to our 2014 engagement shoots. Congratulations Cam and Sarah and all the best for your wedding to come!
