There are proposals, and then there are proposals that nobody will ever forget. This one was the latter. He arranged a private helicopter flight from the Bürgenstock Resort into the heart of the Swiss Alps, landing on a glacier high above the rest of the world — and that’s where he asked the question.
The scenery was staggering. Snow-covered peaks rising in every direction, the glacier stretching out beneath them in an unbroken white, the kind of vast Alpine silence that makes everything feel significant. Before the moment even came, just being up there together — walking across the snowfield, laughing, touching foreheads — was extraordinary. She had no idea what was coming.
One moment they were standing in the middle of all that white, and the next, he was down on one knee, ring box in hand. Her reaction is the kind photographers dream of capturing — pure, unguarded, completely real. Both hands covering her face, then leaning down to kiss him before he’d even stood back up. The glacier made it feel completely private, like it was theirs alone.
After the yes came everything else: the roses and champagne that had been brought along on the helicopter, portraits with that massive bouquet of red roses against the white mountains, laughter, the kind of closeness that only comes after something this significant. Later in the session they moved to a different part of the glacier where a single dramatic Alpine peak rose directly behind them — and those portraits are some of my favourite I’ve ever made.
This is what a once-in-a-lifetime proposal looks like. If you’re looking for a photographer to document something extraordinary — whether on a glacier, at the Bürgenstock, or anywhere else in Switzerland — I’d love to be there.
