Unlucky would-be groom takes persistence to a new level

A Brisbane couple has amazed the world with possibly the most beautiful engagement photograph ever, but getting the snap required a hell of a journey.

Dale Sharpe and Karlie Russell are both photographers who regularly travel to the Arctic Circle for work and have seen the spectacular Northern Lights phenomena some 30 times.

So Dale decided it was the most appropriate place to propose, but on his first attempt nine months ago, he hid the engagement ring in a bottle of moisturiser, which Karlie threw away to make room in their suitcase.

Undeterred, Dale exercised almost super-human restraint and not only kept from Karlie the fact that she’d dumped an expensive ring or that he still planned to propose on their next trip.

This time, his plan went without a hitch.

He told Brisbane’s Nova 106.9FM radio show today that to set the scene for his proposal, he told Karlie he wanted to take a selfie, set his camera to ‘burst’, used a torch for lighting, then shot the pair as he dropped to his knee to pop the question.

Dale shared an amazing photograph of the moment on Facebook and it quickly went viral, so much so that it currently dominates Google search.

“This is a single image that was taken during the proposal. And now we may not have any of our own images up hanging on our walls at home … we may however … make an exception for this one.”

“It’s taken a few years to plan but I always had this moment in mind and it seemed fitting as we are both landscape photographers who share a passion for photographing the aurora,” the photographer recounted on his Facebook post.

“This is a single image that was taken during the proposal. And now we may not have any of our own images up hanging on our walls at home … we may however … make an exception for this one.”

The gorgeous photograph has attracted more 1,100 comments on the couple’s business page on Facebook, as well as more than 13,000 likes and 1,500 shares.

Have you visited the Northern Lights or would you like to? Do you have a dramatic ‘proposal’ story?