They first met at her cousin’s wedding. During the reception, he says he got the courage to ask her to dance. She adds, “I didn’t notice him until that night when he asked me to dance and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him.”

It was not long after that he knew she was the one he would marry. “I knew that Rachel was the one the first time she came to my hometown for Thanksgiving with all my family. Besides how well [her and I] got along, the way she interacted with everyone in my family just felt to be a perfect match.” Rachel noted the same saying, “I don’t know the exact time, but I do remember he was interacting with his family and he looked over at me and I just knew that he was the one. I can’t describe the feeling that I felt.”

Carson filled me in on the proposal: “Not the most honest way to start a marriage, but I convinced Rachel to go to Burlington for a fun day at Fun City and go out to dinner afterward. I had other plans though. We went to Fun City and had a good time then we went to her grandma’s to get ready for dinner. I told her we needed to go to her cousin’s house to pick up a gift to take back to Cedar Rapids with us. We drove up to the house and I had her go to get the gift. In the gift was a new dress and shoes for her to put on. I snuck away to an old barn they have on their property. Her cousin had her go find me in the barn. I was in the barn with lights and lanterns set up inside down on my knee and proposed. The barn is the place where we first met at my friend’s wedding reception.”

Rachel & Carson are currently finishing up school in different states, but I met up with them during their week together over Christmas to photograph a beautiful winter engagement session. They ooze love when they are together and I’m so so excited to photograph their wedding this spring. She says she’s most excited to marry the man of her dreams. He adds that seeing her walk down the aisle is going to be one of the best parts of the day.
We lucked out with a beautiful winter day. The morning was foggy and the afternoon turned into gray clouds. Typically, that would seem really gloomy, but in this case, it made for the most beautiful coloring in the otherwise bleak Midwest.