What are the odds?
Last month, Matthew Dippel snapped what was probably the best photo of his career: a man proposing to his girlfriend on a cliffside at Yosemite National Park.
The only problem was Dippel had no idea who the man and woman in his picture were, and he was too far away to just ask them.
"I ran over there to try and find them, asked maybe 20-25 individuals and came up short," Dippel told ABC News.
But Dippel was determined to track the pair down, and kicked off a nationwide hunt that - despite the odds - actually found them.
"I've seen countless photos from this point [...] I'm just surprised at how viral my mysterious couple became!"
The hunt began on October 17, when Dippel shared the photo he took from Taft Point on Twitter.
"Twitter help," he wrote, "[I don't know] who these two are but I hope this finds them. I took this at Taft Point at Yosemite National Park, on October 6th, 2018."
The gorgeous photo, and the mysterious story attached to it, inspired thousands of strangers to help track down the couple.
The image was shared more than 150,000 times on Twitter alone, with a separate post on Facebook also shared by thousands of helpful online sleuths.
"I've seen countless photos from this point. It's super popular," Dippel explained, "I'm just surprised at how viral my mysterious couple became!"
But after a week with no luck, Dippel was beginning the think the man and woman in his photo didn't want to be found.
It was only a few days later that this mysterious love story got a happy ending, as the man on his knee in the picture stepped forward.
They wanted an "epic proposal photo."
On Saturday, Dippel revealed that the pair in his photo had reached out to him.
"Everyone meet, Charlie Bear and his fiancé Melissa the happy happy couple that was out on the point in my Taft Point Proposal," he wrote on Facebook.
"In short, I captured the second proposal, the more special and official one in Charlie's words."
The photographer added the he was glad to finally "share this special moment" with the couple from California, and hoped to meet them in person someday.
As for how Bear and his fiance discovered the pictures of themselves, it also turned out to be a happy accident.
Bear had been looking through a local news station's Instagram feed when he noticed the photo.
He explained that he and Melissa both love the outdoors, so the park was the perfect place for a special "second proposal."
He hoped to get an "epic proposal photo" on the cliffside, but probably never expected anything as romantic as Dippel's snapshot of the big moment.
