British Couple
Michael Kent and Fiona Newlands are a British couple that decided to go on a trip to the Scandinavian nation of Iceland. They had been delaying the trip for several months, as they were struggling with some personal issues that they could not leave behind. Taking that into account, this lovely trip was a safe haven for both of them. But Michael wanted to make this trip particularly special.
One night, when they were wandering the ice-cold streets of Iceland's capital Reykjavik, Michael went down on one knee. Everything was covered by snow, and they were standing on a quiet street and under a bell made up of fairy lights. It was such a dream-like landscape, that Michael knew it was the precise moment to propose to his girlfriend.
Stranger
What the couple did not know was that there was another person in the same area, and that the person immortalized the moment by taking a photograph of them both. The couple was so excited and overwhelmed that they did not even notice the stranger's presence, not until she approached the couple to ask them if they wanted to have the photograph sent to their e-mails. Michael accepted and typed his e-mail address on the photographer's phone.
The stranger told them that she would send them the picture that same day, and left. Michael and her girlfriend soon realized that they should have asked for the woman's phone number and email as well. Because what if she forgot to send the picture? After all, they had no way of getting in touch with the photographer, and the chances of crossing her in the street once again were pretty slim. And they wanted that picture so badly!
E-Mails
When interviewed by Today magazine in 2015, Michael explained that as soon as they went back to the apartment they were renting, the first thing they did was check their e-mails. Since he hadn't received any emails yet, he started to wonder if he had misgiven his information. When he woke up, there were still no new messages. But, as he bluntly put it, he "was not going to give up!"
Michael and Fiona then decided to start a Facebook search. In his post, Michael wrote: "Dear internet. Last night I proposed to Fiona Newlands in Iceland. A random woman took our picture as it happened (we didn’t know she was there). In the aftermath, I didn’t take the lady’s contact details, and I’m worried I gave her the wrong email.”
Reykjavik Grapevine
Even though his post had been shared 85 times, the couple still had no luck in tracking down the stranger who took their picture. Resuming his search, Michael tweeted the Icelandic magazine The Reykjavik Grapevine, who in turn retweeted his plea. After a couple of hours, a person replied to the tweet saying that he knew who the photographer was and tagged her in the post.
After discovering the identity of the photographer, Kent wrote a new post on Facebook, which stated: "I can’t believe what’s happened. The woman who took the picture of me proposing to Fiona in the street, posted it online after I put my email in wrong on the night. Through my posting on Twitter we were reunited with the photo. I can’t believe it.”
The Mysterious Photographer
Thanks to Twitter, they found out that the name of the stranger who had taken the proposal photograph was Jessica Bowe, a North American citizen living in the city of Reykjavik. When she witnessed that beautiful scene, at first she was shocked. She did not expect to see such a movie-like proposal in such a snowy landscape.
“Sometimes you’re just in the right place at the right time,” Bowe later claimed in an interview. She also said she remembered seeing Kent’s hands shaking when he passed her his contact details: “The man’s hands were trembling as he entered his email address on my phone.” However, it turns out that when she arrived home and tried to send Michael the message, the email failed to send itself.
Panic
The photographer started to panic while thinking that Michael and Fiona were really looking forward to receiving the photo, but that they would not get it. So this setback left her disheartened. Nonetheless, Jessica shared the photo of the couple on her Instagram account for the world to see it and asked everyone to help her find the beautiful and now engaged couple. Little did she know that Michael was also trying at all costs to track her.
Jessica accompanied her Instagram post with a caption that read: “So, this was a special night. I was leaving Bravó after a few happy Friday beers and snapping some pics of the lovely falling snow, with Hallgrímskirkja church in view up Skólavörðustígur, on my usual way home when this couple got engaged on the spot.”
Instagram Post
On her Instagram post, Jessica also gave a detailed account of how the situation had been. According to her account, as soon as she photographed the couple, she waited for a little while in order to give them a moment of privacy. But shortly after, she went to ask them if they wanted to have the picture as a memento. Jessica said that the couple was so happy that both of them warmly hugged her.
To Jessica's surprise, her Instagram post received a lot of praise. Hundreds of people commented and shared the picture, and as a matter of fact, Michael's godfather even found his way to the post. Jessica had not expected her photo and its backstory to have such an impact on others. She had never experienced anything like that before. When interviewed by Today, she explained that she usually uses her Instagram account to upload silly pictures of pets or food, so she was quite surprised after witnessing the huge impact that this post had!
Reward
Michael's and Fiona's efforts finally had their reward, as they got to meet and hang out with their mysterious photographer, Jessica Bowe. The three of them took a picture together and Michael uploaded it to his Instagram account, with the caption: "Reunited with @jrbowe, the photographer of the now infamous picture.” The post received a lot of praise and happiness to all of the people that were following this story, as the trio finally reunited!
Besides, Michael also wrote a Facebook post in which he expressed his feelings after having finally met Jessica. As he said on his post: "I can’t believe what’s happened. The woman who took the picture of me proposing to Fiona in the street posted it online after I put my email in wrong on the night. Through my posting on Twitter, we were reunited with the photo. I can’t believe it.”
Meeting
When Jessica met with the couple, she said that they were really great people and that they could not have happened to be nicer people. Jessica further added that the couple told her that Michael had proposed to Fiona with his grandmother engagement ring, the one that Michael's mother had been keeping for him.
Kent said he had been planning to propose to Newlands since May when they first decided to take a vacation in Iceland. He had originally planned to pop the question under the Northern Lights but was forced to postpone the proposal for a night because a snowstorm had put a damper on their Northern Lights tour.
Wedding
When Today magazine later asked the happy couple whether they would invite Bowe to their wedding, however, Kent laughed and said that they hadn’t even decided on a date yet. He added, “Honestly, we don’t know what we’re going to do. But, of course, she’s more than welcome if she can make it”.
At the same time in 2015, Bowe was asked by the BBC if she was expecting to be part of Michael's and Fiona's big day. And in response, she admitted that she would “love to crash Michael and Fiona's wedding just as randomly as she took their photo".
Another Proposal
As surprising as this may seem, history is known to repeat itself. This happened in 2018, where another stranger took a photograph of another couple in the precise moment of the proposal, but this time the backstage was a cliff edge in the Yosemite National Park in the United States, specifically at the Taft Point, one of the Park's many landmarks.
This time, Matthew Dippel was the stranger that took the photograph of a couple unknown to him. Actually, Matthew was waiting for his friend Josh to appear on the cliff to take him a photograph, but before Josh even got there, Matthew decided to snap a picture of the newly-wed couple. As he was eager to identify them, he went to Facebook, eager to find them in one way or another.
Plea
In his Facebook post, Matthew wrote a plea to all of his friends, and to everybody who came across the post. He said: "Alright Internet I need your help,” he said. "Help me find these two. This was taken at Taft Point, in Yosemite National Park on October 6th, 2018. I took this photo and would love for them to find it!”
As is normal nowadays, the photograph went viral in no time: the post was soon shared by more than 20,000 people and received 12,000 reactions. Even though people were eager to find the couple, most of them were also astonished by the beauty of the photograph. One user commented: "Congrats. This must be every photographer’s dream photo".
Never Ending Search
Despite reaching thousands, the search for the couple didn’t end quickly. In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Matthew told them "had countless people reach out during the search saying they know the couple, that it was their cousin, friend, so on and so forth. So I took anyone reaching out saying they know who it is with caution."
Matthew even had to share and vent his frustration on Twitter: “Still no luck,” he wrote two days after his initial post. A couple of days later he added: “A lot of people saying they found them but doesn’t turn out to be the right couple. If you honestly think you found them message me please!”.
Updates
Three days after his last Twitter update, Matthew started to lose hope in finding the Yosemite couple. He wrote on his Twitter account: "At this point, I’m beginning to believe they have seen it and choose to remain unnamed. I will 90continue searching for a while, so don’t worry I’m not giving up, just not making it priority #1 anymore.”
Matthew explained that the boyfriend's brother reached out to him and told him that he knew who the couple in the photograph was. As evidence, he provided photos of the couple with the same time-stamp and clothing they were wearing the day the picture was taken. For Matthew, it was a celebratory time. Nonetheless, he was still waiting for the couple to contact him.
Charlie Bear
Ten days later, Charlie Bear happened to scroll through a local news station’s Instagram feed, when he saw Matthew's picture. He was astonished: the couple in the picture was him and his now-fiancé, Melissa Ngo. Feeling totally awestruck, he immediately reached out to Dippel.
Matthew then took the time to update his Facebook post to keep everyone updated with the news. His post now read: "I FOUND THEM. Everyone meet Charlie Bear and his fiancée, Melissa – the happy, happy couple that was out on the point in my Taft Point proposal. In short, I captured the second proposal – the more special and official one, in Charlie’s words.”
Congratulations
Matthew continued congratulating the young couple. He wished them to be completely happy in their life together and he even wished to meet them in person to hug them. The photographer was really happy to have found them and was glad that he had been able to share their special moment with them. He still expects to see them one day soon.
However, this wasn’t the first time Bear proposed to Ngo. He had originally popped the question in February 2018 after a special request from Ngo’s 82-year-old grandmother. “I decided to do it earlier so that we could tell her grandma since she always tells us ‘Better get married so I’m still around’”,he said. Since both Bear and Ngo are avid adventurers, he decided to give his wife-to-be a more memorable, second proposal.
It's us!
The couple expressed how much they loved the photo on Instagram. “It's us! Huge thank you once again to Matthew for capturing this special moment and taking the time to track us down,” Charlie said. “Also, a big thanks to all of the media outlets and inter-webs for spreading the word and all of the positive well wishes”.
The couple intends to marry sometime in 2019: the intended date is in April. As Charly expressed on Instagram, “We can’t thank Matt enough for all of his efforts in trying to find us! I’m still trying to comprehend all of this and half of me still can't believe this actually has gone viral online! We love you all!! Now off to wedding planning!”.
Internet Community
The whole Internet community joined in the congratulations to the young couple. One commenter wrote: "Congratulations, Charlie and Melissa. What a blessing for you that Matthew Dippel captured your special moment in that fabulous photograph! Well done, Matthew”, whereas many other people expressed how happy they were for them!
On the other hand, there were those who at first questioned the authenticity of the photo, pointing out that the couple in the photo was improperly dressed for hiking. Regardless of this, when the couple finally appeared, they were enchanted with the story.
Taft Point
A few days before Matthew Dippel had posted his update on Twitter, news broke out that a couple had been found dead at the bottom of Taft Point. Matthew was worried that his photograph had sparked the interest of that particular couple in Taft Point, and that as a consequence the pair fell to their deaths. Sadly, that couple was not the only one that perished in the park in 2018.
When speaking to San Francisco-based station KPIX in the aftermath of the accident, Yosemite spokesperson Scott Gediman revealed that the number of fatalities that year had doubled. Fortunately, no harm had come to the couple whom Dippel had captured on film. According to Gediman, many people pose on Taft Point without any incidents.
Happy Endings
Matthew Dippel told CNN that Taft Point is a super popular point in the Yosemite National Park. In his own words: “There were at least three or four different brides and grooms up there doing their post-wedding photos, so it’s definitely not an uncommon thing to see up there”.
All in all, then, both Dippel’s and Kent’s quests appear to have had happy endings. And the two stories seem to each have a shared moral, too: social media, if used wisely, retains the potential to bring unlikely people together!