The photographer whose photo of an engagement in Yosemite National Park sparked a viral manhunt, says he's found the mystery couple.
Matthew Dippel was getting ready to take a picture of a friend at Yosemite's Taft Point earlier this month, when he saw a man get on one knee to propose to a woman.
He didn't see any other photographers around, so he snapped a picture of the moment to give to the couple.
Dippel ran over to find them, but they were gone by the time he got there.
"I must have just ran right past their friends that they had up there with them," he said.
Dippel was in the middle of a road trip, but he posted the photo on social media when he got home to Grand Rapids, Michigan on October 17.
The posts were shared thousands of times by people all over the world.
Charlie Bear told HLN that he and his now-fiance Melissa stumbled on the post on Instagram last week.
"At first, I wasn't really sure it was us to be honest," Bear said. But they compared Dippel's photo with pictures they had taken to make sure.
Dippel was a little skeptical, at first, because he'd gotten tons of messages from people claiming to be the couple, so he asked them to prove it.
"They sent me over iPhone screen shots of some of their friends that were up on that point that day, and they are wearing the exact same thing, and the photos are timestamped on the exact same day and the same time that I was there," Dippel said. "It just perfectly matched up to Charlie and Melissa."
Dippel said he's still working out the details to get them a print of the photo.
Bear said that it was actually their second proposal. He'd asked in February, but wanted to something personal, that would be memorable for them.
Mission accomplished.
"Even though this was the second time around I was just as nervous as the first time, and I was even more nervous being high up on the cliff," Bear said. "I have a fear of heights, and I kind of overcame that for her."
They're now planning an April wedding in Malibu, California.
