Photographer Tracks Down Mystery Couple After Snapping Their Engagement

Rachel Henderson desperately tried to find the couple.

ByABC News
May 23, 2016, 1:31 PM
Photographer Rachel Henderson snapped this photo of Rachael Hagan and Justin Lillard getting engaged.
Photographer Rachel Henderson snapped this photo of Rachael Hagan and Justin Lillard getting engaged.
Courtesy AluraWayne Photography

— -- A Nashville photographer who stumbled upon an engagement happening right before her eyes and took a few photos was desperate to find the couple she shot. Thanks to Facebook, she eventually tracked them down a state away.

Rachel Henderson told ABC News she was in the middle of a superhero photo session for two 3-year-old boys when she spotted a woman ducking and hiding behind trees. Apparently, the woman was helping her brother set up his engagement to his girlfriend of two years.

"I said, 'I see that you don't have a camera.' She had a backpack, her phone and this tiny camcorder thing. So I gave her my card and said, 'Well I'll go ahead and take some pics for them."

Henderson said she normally charges $300 or more for an engagement photo session.

"I had expected the woman I gave the card to to get a hold of me but five days passed and I didn't hear anything," Henderson, 30, added.

So that's when she took to Facebook to find the couple.

Eventually her plea reached ABC affiliate WKRN, which posted the plea to its Facebook page. After the story was shared by more than 2,000 people, Henderson eventually found the couple.

The people featured in the photo was Cape Girardeau, Missouri, couple Rachael Hagan and Justin Lillard. Their 1-year-old son Karson is also in the photo.

Hagan, 29, told ABC News that she remembers Henderson from her engagement day on May 15 but she was so excited about starting a life with Lillard that she forgot to get Henderson's card from Lillard's sister, Kimsey.

"It was just kind of a crazy moment really," she recalled.

Hagan said she got four calls from friends in three different states alerting her that Henderson had been searching for her. Eventually, she added Henderson on Facebook and the two now call each other friends.

"Justin ... calls it fate because that spot was not the place where he planned to propose," Hagan said. "The fact that it worked out that way and she just happened to be there, it was just the right place at the right time."

Hagan said doesn't have "any set wedding plans" just yet but she has figured out a wedding date: "We're going to be married in June of next year."