El Paso photographer takes photo of beachside proposal, finds couple through Twitter

SACRAMENTO, California -- From El Paso, Texas to Sacramento, California with love. An El Paso-based photographer made it her mission to track down a Sacramento couple after capturing their engagement in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“I just remember him saying, ‘I love you so much, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you,’ ” Jazmine Winn said.

She says she’s still on cloud nine, days after her now-fiancé, Ricky Johnson Jr., popped the question. Johnson had been planning the proposal for a month.

Recently, photographer Valere Contreras was visiting the historic Sutro baths outside of San Francisco with friends. She happened to look up and noticed a moment happening in front of her.

“That’s when I connected the dots, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s going to propose!’ Then and there, we just started shooting, just started taking photos,” Contreras said.

She says she didn’t want to ruin the moment but still wanted the happy couple to have the photos. So she took to Twitter posting a message telling Twitter to do its magic, asking the world to connect her with the couple. And within hours, the message got through.

“I got a text message from my friend, he goes, ‘hey Twitter is looking for you,’ ” Winn said.

The couple saw the thousands of shares, retweets and likes. Almost 700,000 likes later, the cross-country connection was made. The photos were shared with them and this couple is forever grateful to the traveling photographer and social media for making the impossible, possible.

“We want our kids to see and know our story,” Winn said.

The couple met at a Sacramento church two years ago and plan to get married in January 2022.

Johnson Jr. hired a professional photographer to capture their day. The couple says they were grateful to see their photos from another angle, too.