‘The Hunt is Over:’ Oregon couple’s quirky, hunting-themed engagement photo goes viral
The photo, captioned ‘The Hunt is Over,’ features bride-to-be Stevie Beard holding a rifle while her fiancé, Brady Hogevoll, hangs by his ankles from a tractor. The photo has racked up 6.4 million views on Facebook.
The hunt may be over — but the social media attention has just begun.
An Oregon couple’s save-the-date photo has gone viral, racking up 6.4 million views on Facebook.
The photo — which features bride-to-be Stevie Beard holding a rifle while her fiancé, Brady Hogevoll, hangs by his ankles from a tractor — is captioned, “The Hunt is Over!”
Photographer Joshua Rainey snapped the cheeky shot for the Logsden couple last month. The bride shared it with the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a hunting advocacy group, and it took off on social media. The millions of people who have viewed it on Facebook resulted in more than 162,000 likes, the group said.
The attention stunned the engaged couple.
“At first, it’s really shocking,” Beard told the Oregonian. “You don’t ever expect for your face or your picture to go all over the country.”
Beard and Hogevoll, both 28, grew up together in rural Oregon. Eventually the childhood friends started dating.
Hogevoll’s family is full of hunters, and when he started dating Beard, he took her out hunting. The family sometimes hangs their game on the tractor while they clean it, Beard told the newspaper.
“So I told Brady, ‘What if we did one, and we hung you from the tractor?'” Beard said. “And he looked at me and was like, ‘Well, by my ankles?'”
The groom, showing he was a good sport, eventually agreed. Beard’s dad painted the save-the-date sign, and Hogevoll practiced knots that would keep him safely secured to a shovel apparatus attached to the tractor’s front end.
On the day of the shoot — which also included more traditional poses of the couple holding hands and kissing — Rainey snapped quickly so the groom wouldn’t have to stay upside down for too long.
Beard, a dental hygienist, and Hogevoll, a tugboat captain, will be wed on Sept. 5.