The fiancée subverting tradition
SOPHIA LI journalist and climate advocate
The engagement photo industry hasn’t, as yet, taken off in the UK. But in China it’s big business, with studios erecting life-sized recreations of landmarks, like the Eiffel Tower, so couples can ‘travel’ the world for theirs. So when Sophia Li, a New York-based journalist and climate advocate, found herself back in Shandong visiting extended family, in Guanxian, near Jinan, for the first time since the pandemic, she and fiancé Lawrence had a set taken.
‘I always remember my cousins getting them. They’re a bit cheesy but also really beautiful,’ she says, adding that, in China, they can be even more important than shots from your wedding. ‘Engagement photos are the ones everyone blows up and hangs in their apartments.’ The process was a well-oiled operation, from the historically accurate costumes, spanning various dynasties, to the holding of tree branches to create a dappled shadow on the backdrop. ‘It probably exceeded expectations. My little sister was there; my parents came at one point,’ says Sophia. ‘The photographer gave so many directions. They’d be like, “Hold the teacup this way,” and demonstrate it. “No, hold the fan like this.” They're very specific.’
As well as using the resulting photos on their digital invite, the engagement itself was very ‘them’. ‘I feel like marriage can be such a machine and such a capitalist system in itself. We wanted to do it in our own way and not abide by societal norms,’ says Sophia, who decided to propose to Lawrence – after she’d already accepted his proposal – with a vintage Rolex, one that was made in his birth year. ‘I thought the partner [should] feel like they are allowed to say yes as well.’ And with her work being connected so closely with climate change, Sophia’s engagement ring was made entirely out of family heirlooms by Devereux: jade from one of her dad’s trips to Tibet, gold from Lawrence’s mother’s side and 12 diamonds encircling the stone that represent the members of their immediate family.