It was at a surprise 14th birthday party for her her best friend. She said that she “saw him (showing off) … and didn’t want anything to do with him.” He spotted her and says that was when his pursuit started. It took a while. Over a year in fact.

Their first date was on Lake MacBride, where we also went for their engagement session. They met at Dairy Queen and drove out to the beach and talked and talked. When she went home that night, she told her mom she was going to marry him.

He said that he always had a feeling she was the one, even from a young age, but didn’t ever want to say it. “It hit me hard in January of 2013 when I left town for a week to play in the Shrine Bowl. I felt this weird homesick feeling I had never experienced before. It dawned on me that it was the first time I had left Skylar since she had officially moved in. I always knew I loved her, but it was then I realized she was the love of my life and I hated being apart from her.”

Skylar told me about their engagement. “We decided to plan a surprise for each other one weekend. James told me he had a surprise planned for 8 PM that night and of course I immediately thought he was proposing so I started to think about what to wear and how to do my hair. We have two dogs, Rusty & June (who competes in DockDog competitions and we train her on the docks at the lake). James said we should take June swimming so she would be super tired and would sleep while we were out so I agreed and we headed toward the lake. I was so focused on 8 PM that I didn’t even notice we were at the exact same spot as our first date. He proposed right there by the water and it was beautiful!”

How cute are they??!?

Stunning!!!

Skylar & James love to play cribbage so they brought along their personalized cribbage board. I absolutely adore this about them!!!

Remember their dogs, June & Rusty? Don’t they make an adorable family?

James & Skylar, I feel like we’ve been friends for far longer than a few days. 🙂 I consider it such an honor to be part of your wedding day and I am so thrilled for you both as you continue this long, beautiful journey of friendship, love, and togetherness. Xo, Emily

Leave them some love below in the comments!