This couple posed for some very Boston engagement photos
Dunkin' Donuts cups were involved.
No one close to Mary Childs and Andrew Rapala seemed surprised that the couple included Dunkin’ Donuts cups in their engagement shoot earlier this month.
“They were like, ‘Of course you did,'” said Childs, 26, a service desk analyst. “It just made sense.”
Childs met Rapala, 24, a manufacturing engineer, in the summer of 2010 when they both worked at a Dunkin’ Donuts shop in her hometown of Harvard. Together they made coffee and sandwiches, manned the cash register, and tidied up the shop.
After Childs moved to Boston to attend Northeastern University, the friends kept in touch via text. When Rapala, of Groton, enrolled at Wentworth Institute of Technology and moved to Boston, too, they began dating—and eventually worked at Dunkin’ Donuts again during college, at an Allston shop near where they lived.
Rapala and Childs during their Boston engagement session.
When they weren’t studying or serving coffee, the pair loved to explore Boston. They’d stroll through the Fenway Victory Gardens, located near Childs’s first apartment, walk to the waterfront to watch the planes take off from Logan Airport, and visit the seal tank outside the New England Aquarium.
All of those locations served as backdrops for their engagement shoot on May 9.
Rapala and Childs pose outside the New England Aquarium.
“I always encourage couples to choose locations that are meaningful to them,” said Kelly Benvenuto, their wedding photographer.
Benvenuto said she’s photographed plenty of couples at quintessential Boston locations — but she’s never done it with Dunkin’ cups.
“I don’t know if it can get more Boston,” she said, with a laugh. “That was a new level.”
Benvenuto said she doesn’t normally recommend using props at her shoots, but she couldn’t resist with Childs and Rapala.
“In this case, it was so integral to them,” Benvenuto said.
“It’s much more than just coffee,” Rapala said. “It’s a passion. Everywhere we go, we get Dunkin’ Donuts. It feels like home.”
Rapala and Childs with Dunkin’ Donuts at their engagement session.
The morning in October 2015 that Rapala popped the big question, Dunkin’ cups weren’t far from the ring — Rapala had made a Dunks run before cooking a pancake breakfast and serving it to Childs in bed.
Three of the lifelong friends the couple made at the company will be attendants at their wedding this September at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard.
Childs even had her nails done the same color pink as the Dunkin’ logo before the engagement shoot.
“I kind of wanted to do an homage to the Dunkin’ Donuts color scheme,” said Childs, adding, “We almost made our wedding the Dunkin’ Donuts color scheme.”
“We went in another direction,” Rapala said. “Thankfully.”
Childs and Rapala at their engagement session.
Rapala always orders a large, hot, regular coffee with cream and sugar. Childs tends to order iced tea with lemon, but when she’s in the mood for coffee, she’ll get a medium hot or iced coffee with cream and sugar.
“I’m a little bit of a New England traitor, and I change the temperature of my beverage based on the season,” Childs said.
“Scandalous!” Rapala joked.
