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Brainy couple stages zombie photoshoot

When patient zero meets the girl of his dreams this is what the engagement photos might well look like. The next question, will the invitations ask for your choice of chicken, fish or brains?

 

Fernando Alfonso III

IRL

Posted on Aug 23, 2011   Updated on Jun 3, 2021, 3:14 am CDT

As the sun sets in the distance, photographer Amanda Rynda hurries to get a few last shots of the engaged couple.

Juliana Sunmi Park and Benjamin Jinsuk Lee, the happy couple, share some wine on the hills of Valencia, Calif., while staring into each others eyes.

Then all of a sudden a bloodied figure appears in the background with hands outstretched.

It’s a zombie and it’s hungry for blood.

The zombie was part of a photo shoot Lee and Park set-up to celebrate their engagement. Since the couple already had traditional engagement photos taken, they thought it would be fun to have Rynda, a college friend of Park, take some more unconventional shots, Lee said in an interview with the Daily Dot.

“We thought it’d be fun to do something off the wall,” said Lee, a designer and illunstrator. “The only people that knew we were going to go in that direction was the photographer, my fiance, and our friend who dressed up like a zombie. I don’t think my parents have seen them, nor do I think they would comprehend why we did that–they’re traditional Korean.”

Rynda scouted out the location and story boarded the sequence of events before the shoot. She chose to shoot in the afternoon so the photos had that end of the world feeling.

“I really love ‘The Walking Dead’ on AMC and I’m a huge fan of HBO’s’ True Blood’ but truthfully my sci fi/fantasy taste lies more in line with Twilight and The Hunger Games,” Rynda said in an interview with the Daily Dot. “Is that saying something bad about myself?”

The couple posted the photos on their wedding website (which has since been password protected) and caught the attention of G4TV, The Chive and Reddit, where it collected 246 comments and more than 4,200 upvotes (An upvote expresses agreement, interest, or approval, and a downvote the opposite.)

“Seriously cutest couple ever,” wrote KempfCreative on Reddit.

“These people look like they’d be fun to drink with,” wrote the_aptly_named.

“I want to marry these people,” wrote charlesmg.

Lee and Park don’t plan on continuing the zombie theme at their wedding this fall. They instead plan on having a conventional nuptial, Lee said. And thanks to the photos, they feel closer than ever.

“It sort of cements why we’re getting married when you can see eye-to-eye on zany things like this,” he said.

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*First Published: Aug 23, 2011, 12:38 pm CDT