Happily Ever After Begins Here -- An Oct. 2012 TR Updated! 11/17!

[Disneyluvr]

Yeah, we finally got to the proposal! And it was so magical! Franklin is definitely a keeper, congrats again to both of you!!,

 

[Tiggerrn2]

So excited to finally get to read this chapter!!!! What an awesome proposal! Great job, Franklin!!! And your ring is just beautiful, Missy.
Can't wait to read more about your day.

 

[blabbermouth]

Such a great engagement, so nice to have photos of it too!

I love Jasmine's reaction too!

 

[mom2rtk]

Awww....... that was absolutely the BEST!

Missy, you got a real keeper. Thank you so much for sharing your very personal moment. Getting engaged in the castle is just SO perfect.

 

[fabulousfive]

Wow, wow, wow!!! Congratulations! That is the most perfect proposal ever! I'm so happy for you two. I love how Cinderella's Royal Table had so many perfect details -- from the perfectly etched glass slipper all the way down to the engaged buttons ready to go. And yes, I'm sure Franklin had a ton to do with how perfect and detailed it all was. I'm sure you're just in heaven now with all that's ahead. Enjoy this special time! Oh, and I love that photo of you two with the sparkling ring on your finger -- beautiful!

And at such an exciting time I'm sorry to ask a photo question, but how did Franklin get such bright images inside the castle? I couldn't even get a photo of the mice as it was so dark. It looked like he didn't even use a flash. Did he? My ISO doesn't go that high so it's a struggle. And then when I took photos of the stained glass, it was just white & blown out outside. How in the world did he capture Fantasyland in the background? I am so wanting to know! We are going there twice this next trip.

And I need to find that plaque in Fantasyland. I love it!

So happy to share in all the excitement!!!!

 

[JanetMom]

What a wonderful proposal story!

Thanks for sharing it and the pictures with us! Such a great memory for you to keep forever!

 

[nemajovc]

So happy to see your wonderful engagement photos. I'm generally a lurker but so happy for you And Franklin. You seem like people I'd enjoy having as friends - best wishes.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[jke2013]

What an wonderful proposal!!! Lots of planning (and love) obviously went into it!! That's amazing that Franklin was able to surprise you!! Congrats!! Beautiful ring too!!

 

[JustTinking]

Perfect proposal for Disney lovers! Congratulations!

 

[Wood Nymph]

The ring is beautiful, the setting was perfect and it all went off without a hitch. And I love Jasmine's reaction. Congratulations!

I have a feeling a lot of people would love to have had such a lovely proposal.

 

[MeeskaMomma]

Amazing! So sweet. I got tears eyed just reading it. I love the look one your face. What a perfect proposal!!! Best wishes to you!

 

[khertz]

How sweet & adorable!!! What a great proposal memory. Franklin did such an amazing job setting that up! And holy cow, that ring is GORGEOUS!!!

 

[mdsouth]

Congratulations Missy and Franklin! What a wonderful, charming engagement story. I have been enjoying your TR immensely!, It is a fantastic combo of your storytelling and Franklin's photographs!! I am looking forward to reading more about this trip and anticipate reading more of your travels in the future!

 

[tinacaplan]

OK...I totally cheated and fast forwarded here! But...WOW! What an amazing proposal. And it all got captured by photopass photographers, even better! Must have made for an amazing day at MK!

And, yes, I got a little tear-y, too! Congratulations!

 

[Missyrose]

I have not commented much on your TR but I have to say all of the pictures are incredible. I'm not even lying when I say they are some of the best I have ever seen in a TR. WOW! I love the one of the nearly empty Main Street. So pretty!

How awesome to get engaged at Cinderella's Royal Table!

Thank you! This was the second time we'd done an early-morning ADR at MK and we just love the chance to be in the park when it's that empty. It feels magical.

Yeah, we finally got to the proposal! And it was so magical! Franklin is definitely a keeper, congrats again to both of you!!,

Yes, we're finally here! Was it worth the wait? Franklin is most definitely a keeper, I'm such a lucky girl!

So excited to finally get to read this chapter!!!! What an awesome proposal! Great job, Franklin!!! And your ring is just beautiful, Missy.
Can't wait to read more about your day.

Thank you! Lots more engagement day fun coming up.

Such a great engagement, so nice to have photos of it too!

I love Jasmine's reaction too!

I feel so lucky that we literally have hundreds of photos from when we go engaged. They're photos we'll treasure forever! Jasmine was very, very funny. And let's face it, she does know her jewels.

Awww....... that was absolutely the BEST!

Missy, you got a real keeper. Thank you so much for sharing your very personal moment. Getting engaged in the castle is just SO perfect.

It was so, so perfect. I'm still on when I think about that morning.

Wow, wow, wow!!! Congratulations! That is the most perfect proposal ever! I'm so happy for you two. I love how Cinderella's Royal Table had so many perfect details -- from the perfectly etched glass slipper all the way down to the engaged buttons ready to go. And yes, I'm sure Franklin had a ton to do with how perfect and detailed it all was. I'm sure you're just in heaven now with all that's ahead. Enjoy this special time! Oh, and I love that photo of you two with the sparkling ring on your finger -- beautiful!

And at such an exciting time I'm sorry to ask a photo question, but how did Franklin get such bright images inside the castle? I couldn't even get a photo of the mice as it was so dark. It looked like he didn't even use a flash. Did he? My ISO doesn't go that high so it's a struggle. And then when I took photos of the stained glass, it was just white & blown out outside. How in the world did he capture Fantasyland in the background? I am so wanting to know! We are going there twice this next trip.

And I need to find that plaque in Fantasyland. I love it!

So happy to share in all the excitement!!!!

Thank you! It's funny, I'm clearly the planner in our relationship. But Franklin really hit one out of the park when it came to planning this proposal. The wedding plans are rolling right along, but this has definitely been the fastest year of our lives! I'll put up a real-life update soon with some photos from my bridal shower, which was this past Saturday!

Oh! And the plaque is above the train station tunnel as you walk into the park. Happy hunting!

What a wonderful proposal story!

Thanks for sharing it and the pictures with us! Such a great memory for you to keep forever!

Thank you! I was happy to get to share it with all of you.

So happy to see your wonderful engagement photos. I'm generally a lurker but so happy for you And Franklin. You seem like people I'd enjoy having as friends - best wishes.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

Thanks for coming out of lurkdom for this!

What an wonderful proposal!!! Lots of planning (and love) obviously went into it!! That's amazing that Franklin was able to surprise you!! Congrats!! Beautiful ring too!!

Thanks, I love my ring. I love that it looks so different from anything else I've ever seen before.

Perfect proposal for Disney lovers! Congratulations!

It was the perfect proposal for two people who live Disney as much as we do!

The ring is beautiful, the setting was perfect and it all went off without a hitch. And I love Jasmine's reaction. Congratulations!

I have a feeling a lot of people would love to have had such a lovely proposal.

I feel very lucky to have had a proposal that included so many lovely details.

Amazing! So sweet. I got tears eyed just reading it. I love the look one your face. What a perfect proposal!!! Best wishes to you!

Those photos of when they first brought out the platter with the ring are pretty priceless. Thanks so much for the good wishes!

How sweet & adorable!!! What a great proposal memory. Franklin did such an amazing job setting that up! And holy cow, that ring is GORGEOUS!!!

Thanks Kristy! Franklin did an amazing job with everything: the setting, the details and the beautiful ring!​

 

[Missyrose]

You two snuck in while I was working on the other response post...

Congratulations Missy and Franklin! What a wonderful, charming engagement story. I have been enjoying your TR immensely!, It is a fantastic combo of your storytelling and Franklin's photographs!! I am looking forward to reading more about this trip and anticipate reading more of your travels in the future!

Thanks for following along!

OK...I totally cheated and fast forwarded here! But...WOW! What an amazing proposal. And it all got captured by photopass photographers, even better! Must have made for an amazing day at MK!

And, yes, I got a little tear-y, too! Congratulations!

Awww, thanks Tina! You're totally allowed to fast forward to this chapter, it's what everyone has been waiting for. ​

 

[Mommy Poppins]

CONGRATULATIONS! CONGRATULATIONS! CONGRATULATIONS!! Franklin is definitely a keeper and what a Romantic!! Very happy for both of you!

 

[Splashboat]

The setting was perfect, the ring is beautiful but the look on your face was priceless - thanks for sharing.

 

[Pixel Dust]

Wow, wow, wow!!! Congratulations! That is the most perfect proposal ever! I'm so happy for you two. I love how Cinderella's Royal Table had so many perfect details -- from the perfectly etched glass slipper all the way down to the engaged buttons ready to go. And yes, I'm sure Franklin had a ton to do with how perfect and detailed it all was. I'm sure you're just in heaven now with all that's ahead. Enjoy this special time! Oh, and I love that photo of you two with the sparkling ring on your finger -- beautiful!

And at such an exciting time I'm sorry to ask a photo question, but how did Franklin get such bright images inside the castle? I couldn't even get a photo of the mice as it was so dark. It looked like he didn't even use a flash. Did he? My ISO doesn't go that high so it's a struggle. And then when I took photos of the stained glass, it was just white & blown out outside. How in the world did he capture Fantasyland in the background? I am so wanting to know! We are going there twice this next trip.

And I need to find that plaque in Fantasyland. I love it!

So happy to share in all the excitement!!!!

Thank you so much! Yes, the lighting conditions are horrible. It's extremely bright outside and very dark inside. I knew that going in and the most important photos were going to be us with the stained glass in the background. That was what I was going to prepare for. So yes, I was getting nice detailed shots of the stained glass and of the whole room. But really I was dialing in the proper exposures for the main event.

Now for the actual settings. For most people it's not what you expect.
Test shot, the dining room with the stained glass. What you want to do is expose for the brightest part of the scene, the stained glass. With digital photography, once areas are too over exposed, it's difficult to recover that detail. I also knew I eventually wanted to use flash (it was not used in this photo). That meant, the fastest shutter speed I could use was 1/200. I set the ISO to 100 and aperture to f/4. Not good... shutter speed came to 1/250. But for this photo, it's okay since I didn't need flash. For flash photos, I would need to stop down to something like an f/7. I also got lucky for this photo. Since it was still morning, sunlight was still lighting the room. Had it been mid-afternoon, it would be darker inside, as the castle blocks sunlight into the room.

Once I had settled on settings for flash photos, I left it in manual mode. Yes, we did have a photopass photographer, but I also asked the event coordinator for CRT, just moments before, if someone could use my camera too, so we had something while we waited for the photopass CD. By leaving the camera in manual mode, it was less likely the camera would be fooled under those difficult lighting situations. And someone can just pick it up and snap away.

I just used the built-in flash on my camera. The flash was in auto (TTL) mode. But, dialed in a -0.7 flash compensation. That just means, I wanted the flash to be a little darker. I generally dislike the look of flash, and it's usually because it's way too bright. As I mentioned before, the camera is in manual mode. ISO 100, 1/100 shutter speed, f/7.1.

Low ISO, Fast Shutter Speed, Small Aperture. Those settings control the super bright background, the stained glass windows.

Flash was forced on (TTL), but dialed back -0.7 stops. That will expose the foreground (people and characters) properly.



Need a comparison? Let's take a look at the PhotoPass photographer's photo.

There weren't any settings information attached to the photo, but I could give a pretty good guess what happened here. He was probably using a much higher ISO and stuck to the default shutter speed with flash. Which is usually 1/60th for Nikons. Aperture was probably wide open, f/3.5, something the camera would default to in Program mode with flash. Those setting make the windows too bright.

I'm not saying our PhotoPass photographer was bad. He was great, actually. He took photos of the ring and slipper on the rose petals in the back, before it was brought out. He stayed as long as we wanted, and took as many photos as we needed.



Unfortunately, with extreme lighting conditions, the equipment will start to have an impact on the photo quality. First, you will definitely need a camera that will shoot in RAW format (not just JPG). That will help retain detail in the brightest and darkest areas of the image, something a JPG image file can not do. Then you would need a photo editing program to be able to read the RAW file. I have been using Lightroom and it works great for me. Smaller cameras are not going to be able to handle this lighting situation, let alone have a manual mode to get what you want. A DSLR or mirrorless camera would be the best option here.


NOTE: These settings are only for facing the stained glass windows. If the windows are behind the camera, you can use your normal indoor settings.

And yes, I was thinking all of that, in addition to the actual proposal.
​

 

[annie170]

Congratulations to the two of you! What a perfect proposal! Are you getting married in Disney also?