Delay-loading a C libary in C++ code

Question

I'm currently trying to load the ffmpeg library (in C) into my C++ project. The library consists of headers, .lib files and .dll files, all of which I loaded and used successfully. However, it is strongly desirable for our project to have these dll files loaded in delayed, and this is where I'm failing.

What it boils down to is this:

• When I build the project without referring to any of the library's dll functions, it runs correctly and I see (by my logs) that all dlls are correctly loaded where I'm explicitly getting their DLL handle.
• When I build the project and include function calls to the dll, the executable simple fails to load because it's missing 'xx.dll'. This is before the function call is done. IE: Simply by having a dll function call in my code, it seems the program tries to load it when starting.
  • When I manually add the dlls next to my program's executable, it runs fine in both scenarios, but it is not desirable to have them next to my executable.

Is there something obvious that I'm missing or doing wrong?

Thanks!