Proposal session
Your partner sees no photographer until the question is asked — then thirty minutes together, and 35 photographs in a private gallery within 48 hours.
- Reply within about two hours
- Price agreed before the session
- Free reschedule for bad weather
What’s included
- 35 retouched photographs
- Location and timing scouted in advance
- Photographed unseen, then 30 minutes together afterwards
- Private gallery within 48 hours
Who it is for
Who books this, and why
People planning a surprise
You want the look on their face, and you cannot hold a phone and a ring at the same time. The whole session is built around nobody noticing it has started.
Visitors proposing on holiday
You know the city from a screen and have one morning to get it right. We know which viewpoint is empty at that hour and which one has a coach party.
Couples who have already agreed
Not every proposal is a surprise. If you have decided together and want the moment staged properly — the ring, the view, the hug afterwards — the hour works just as well.
Portfolio
Proposal session portfolio
A selection of proposal session shots to inspire your shoot.
How it works
From the first message to your gallery
Message us, not them
Everything goes to your email and your phone only. Tell us the city, roughly when, and what your partner thinks the day is about.
The spot and the minute, fixed in advance
We scout the location for that hour and send you an exact place to stand, a time, and where the photographer will be. Agreed the day before at the latest.
The photographer is already there
In place before you arrive, dressed like anyone else on the viewpoint, photographing from a distance with a long lens. When the answer is given, they walk over.
Thirty minutes, then 35 photographs in 48 hours
Once the surprise is over there is half an hour together for the portraits of the two of you, with the ring in them. The gallery link comes to you, so you choose when to share it.
Four details — place, date, session and how to reach you — are enough for a written quote. Nothing to pay to ask.
Before the session
How to prepare
Short, practical, and the part most people skip. None of it costs anything, and all of it shows in the photographs.
- Give your partner a reason to dress for the day — a dinner booking, a friend’s photographs, anything plausible.
- Build fifteen minutes of slack into the excuse that gets you there; the fixed minute only works if you arrive before it.
- Stand where you were told, facing the way you were told. Two metres to the left can put a lamppost between you and the lens.
- Keep the ring box in a front pocket you can reach without turning your back to the view.
- Agree a covered second spot the day before in case of rain, so you are not improvising with a ring in your pocket.
- Do not look for the photographer. It is the single most common way a surprise is given away.
Book Proposal session in your city
Available in 2 Portuguese cities and destinations. Choose yours.
About this session
Agree the spot and the minute the day before
- Starting from
- €250
- Duration
- 60 min
- Edited photos
- 35
- Cities
- 2
Every proposal session that goes wrong goes wrong the same way: the signal was agreed on the day. A hand in a pocket, a particular phrase, a glance towards the photographer — all of them fail, because at the moment it matters you will be thinking about something else entirely and the photographer will be two hundred metres away trying to read a gesture. A fixed spot and a fixed minute, agreed the day before, removes the problem completely.
The rest is location and light. A viewpoint that is empty at seven in the morning has forty people on it by nine, and a proposal with an audience is a different photograph from the one you had in mind. Sunrise is the reliable answer in Lisbon and the Algarve; in the Douro and Madeira the constraint is the drive rather than the crowd. After the moment itself there are thirty minutes together, which is when the photographs of the two of you actually get made — the ones from the proposal are of a face reacting, and those are worth having but they are not a portrait.
Frequently asked questions about Proposal session
How do we agree a signal?
A fixed spot and a fixed minute, agreed the day before. Signals given on the day — a hand in a pocket, a phrase — fail, because you will be thinking about something else entirely.
What if my partner notices the photographer?
A person with a camera on a Lisbon viewpoint at sunrise is the least suspicious thing there. The photographer works from a distance with a long lens, does not look at you before the minute, and photographs other things in the meantime.
Which places work best for a proposal?
Ones that are empty at the hour you can get there. Miradouro da Senhora do Monte in Lisbon at seven in the morning; the clifftop path at Ponta da Piedade in Lagos at sunrise; Foz do Douro in Porto at sunset. Anywhere at the edge of a cliff is out, however good it would look.
What if we are late?
Send a message — a short text from the bathroom is enough. The photographer stays in position and adjusts. What does not work is changing the spot on the way there without telling anyone.
Can we propose with people around?
You can, but it is a different photograph: strangers turning to watch, phones held up behind you. If an audience is part of the plan, say so and the photographer frames it in. If not, choose an earlier hour rather than hoping the viewpoint clears.
Can family or friends join after the proposal?
Yes, within the thirty minutes afterwards. Keep them out of sight until the moment is over — a café round the corner works — and they can walk up for a few group frames once the answer has been given.
Proposal session, from €250
Tell us the place and the date. You get a written quote within about two hours during the working day, and the price you are quoted is the price you pay.