Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
AUSTIN — A private proposal becomes an Internet, and international, sensation.
Wednesday, Joel Bush told his girl friend, Jennifer Orr, that he needed a ride to his truck at the state capitol. When they got there Bush pulled his big surprise, and asked her to marry him.
"So we went for a walk and we were chatting, at the right moment I got down on one knee and proposed to her, asked if she would marry me and thankfully she said yes," Bush said. "We hugged and kissed and but went on home. We thought that was it, really."
Only they weren't quite alone. Photographer Patrick Lu was riding his bike nearby when he saw the couple and decided to capture the special moment.
"I was really far away and I needed to get closer without disturbing them so I just sort of slowly went up and got as close as I could and took some pictures, basically," Lu said. "The way I sort of take pictures nowadays is that a lot of people don't know I'm taking pictures of them, I just try to be as non-obtrusive as possible."
But this moment was a special one for the couple, and he wanted them to have the photo. In order to find out who they were, he posted it on the social media site Reddit, asking if anyone knew who it was.
"I just had to download this image and it said, "is this you, question mark" — that it was, it wasn't pointing me to a photo on the web it was just a photo in the mail and thankfully I opened it up and I just kind of flipped," Bush said.
But Bush and Orr didn't mind. Word got out to their friends and eventually they got to meet Lu.
"Just a huge thanks to Patrick for taking that picture and taking that step and reaching out to the Reddit community and following up on it, I mean the photo is priceless," Orr said.
The couple hopes Lu will attend another special moment: their wedding. "I will not be the photographer but I will go," Lu said "I will be taking pictures but I will not be the main photographer for the event."
