An Oregon couple’s save the date photo has caught the internet’s attention after their wedding photographer Joshua Rainey posted it on Facebook. The photo shoot, themed “The Hunt is Over,” depicts the future bride Stevie Beard holding a hunting rifle, while her fiancé Brady Hogevoll hangs upside-down on a tractor like prized game.
To date, the photo has been viewed by more than 6.4 million people on Facebook and has been shared by 162,000.
The popularity of the photo has come as a shock for the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Hogevoll. The couple met when they were 9-year-old kids growing up in rural Lincoln County. Hogevoll made the first move on an uninterested Beard when they were fourth graders. Several years later they started dating and became engaged.
“We just love to have fun together,” Beard says, “and we love to laugh.”
It was Beard’s idea to incorporate a hunting theme for the photo, as Hogevoll grew up hunting with his family. The couple now do it together as a hobby, and they usually hang game from hooks on a tractor in order to clean it.
Beard told Brady, “What if we did one, and we hung you from the tractor?” After which, her horrified fiancé stared at her and said, “Well, by my ankles?” But needless to say, he agreed.
Though their family was there to assist them with the shoot, Hogevoll tied the knots himself, and personally hooked his feet up to the tractor. When Hogevoll was all set, his father lifted him up slowly.
Rainey says that it was rather tough to get the shot, since Brady, “could only be upside down for a few minutes.”