Peak experience: Special engagement photo wins big

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but what about $20,000? A Bend couple’s mountaintop engagement photo won just that.

The happy couple have had a wild ride since day one, literally.

They actually met while driving down I-5 — in separate cars.

It was love at first sight: He waved at her, she wrote her number on a piece of paper.

Five years later, their engagement began just as crazily, with a climb up the Middle Sister last summer that started out as anything but a blue-sky day.

“You can just see this black covering — you can’t even see the mountains,” Sarah Turner, the bride-to-be, recalled Wednesday.

“That’s when it was just dumping rain when we got there,” said Bud Torcum, the groom-to-be.

It was a dramatic start to their fairytale ending.

Turner’s two brothers and Tocum’s sister joined on the trip up Middle Sister to help capture the moment.

They started their trek at 4 A.M. and, at 8,000 feet, finally made it above the clouds.

“She just thought we were taking a picture in front of Broken Top and South Sister,” Torcum said.

Turner still had her head in the clouds. She posed for a picture taken by her brother, Jeff — and then looked over to realize that Tocum was kneeling down and proposing.

At 10,000 feet up, and after five years of dating, Torcum put a ring on it.

“He’s always a ‘Go big or go home’ kind of guy,” Turner said, adding, “He did good on the ring, too.”

“Yeah,” Torcum said, “I just wanted a big one. She’s very attractive. You’ve got to let people know that she’s taken.”

The couple entered the photo in a competition at the Portland Bridal Show.

With 36 hours to go, they were in the top 10.

They were the only couple in that group who weren’t from Portland but, thanks to the power of social networking, they won.

The prize was $20,000, all in the form of vouchers for various wedding vendors such as the best photographer and videographer in the state.

“That’s the excitement. That’s where we’ve been beside ourselves like, ‘Oh my gosh!'” Torcum said.

The couple said all the money they saved before winning the competition will be used as a down payment on a house.

They will get married this August — with a view of the Three Sisters in the background, naturally.