Proposal in Hot Air Balloon in Napa Valley

My top 5 fun memories from this proposal in a Hot Air Balloon in Napa Valley-

1- Waking up at o’dark :30 ( I am not an early riser by nature, but I will do it when I have the right motivation!)

2- Having to get practically hoisted feet first in to the basket with all my camera gear!

3- Quickly whispering to the lady/tourist next to me (who was from France and spoke broken English), that I was there to photograph a proposal and to excuse me in advance if I got in her way (not much room in those baskets!)

4- Trying to silently alert the guy who hired me that he needed to wait for a specific moment to pop the question, so he wasn’t interrupted by the balloon “driver” loudly firing the fire (it’s seriously louder than you expect, especially when you are high up in the air and its so silent!)

5- Silently laughing at the tourists in the next basket over who had their phone connected to a selfie stick over the side and were live streaming their ride to family in China!

While I photograph 95% of the proposals I do at wineries (and I love it!), it is so fun to mix it up a bit :) It was such a fun experience to get to go up in the Hot Air Balloon and see all of Napa Valley from a new angle.

A few thoughts I have after this experience for anyone looking into this idea-

1- In this situation, there was no room for him to get down on one knee. He considered it, but as you can see, they were both very close with no room to move. I believe you CAN get a balloon ride to yourself, but I can only imagine the price tag for that.

2- If you still wanted to propose with this type of experience, how about proposing before you get in? You could have just as epic of a photo down on one knee while the colorful balloon is inflating behind you. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED getting to join in on the experience of going up as well, but it might not be worth it for you to pay for an extra ticket.

All in all- it is so fun to come up with fun and unique ways to pop the question, and this is definitely a great one!