When I first met Morgan three years ago, her and Ben had just moved in together. They had met at a wedding; Ben was an usher and “was trying to seat Morgan and she was less than pleased with my seating and sat herself.” After the reception, they ended up with at a bar with some mutual friends and other guests and Morgan bought Ben a drink (“Bold move, right?” she says.) But even with that meeting, it wasn’t love at first. They both describe their date as being the “worst date in the history of dates.”

“When Ben and I met, he was living in Waterloo and I was in Minneapolis,” Morgan describes. “I drove to him since I had friends in Waterloo and had a place to stay. To keep the story short and simple, it was the worst first date ever. It started with dinner where I ordered a salad, which came with a pile of croutons. I’m gluten-free and reluctantly scraped them off the salad and prayed I wouldn’t get sick. Then we went to his family’s cabin where we went for a four-wheel ride and I got 100+ mosquito bites (I wish that was an exaggeration). Finally, the night ended with Ben driving us back home in the pouring rain and he crashed his truck into a ditch. He definitely thought I was never texting him back after that. It was horrible, but he made me laugh so much and I just knew there was something special about him.”

Worst first date or not, their connection and adoration for each other now is obvious to anyone around them, including me at the very first meeting. Morgan told me via text after their session that she’s just obsessed with Ben and she hopes it shows in the photos and I was like, “Girlll, you couldn’t hide it if you tried.” They are so so wonderful together and our entire shoot together was filled with so much laughter and fun. I asked them when they knew the other was the one. Ben said it was a collection of things. “It was the time I had to haul manure and she rode along with me just to spend time with me. It was the many times we traveled back and forth just to spend time together. It was watching her love the dog that I got that she didn’t want me to get. It was the struggles and triumphs of both moving to a new town, starting new jobs, and first living together all at once.”

Morgan said it was after several trips back and forth between Minneapolis and Waterloo. “The weekends we went without seeing each other made me miss him so much. They say distances makes the heart grow fonder and I think that’s true. I guess I really knew he was the one when I started looking for jobs back in Iowa to be closer to him.” 

Ben managed to pull off a surprise proposal to Morgan and he says it was perfection. “I had been trying to find a good time to pop the question to Morgan that would be special. She mentioned that she wanted to do a margarita bar crawl in Des Moines for her birthday. So I set out to plan a surprise birthday bar crawl. Inviting my friends and hers all with out her knowing. (She was actually mad because she didn’t think any of her friends were coming; just mine). We started the day off by meeting all of our friends at the bar we met at. She was totally shocked and thought that was the surprise and then I popped the question.” This all happened back in the pub that they first talked after the wedding. Morgan says, “I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect day! It was filled with surprises and love and so much fun.”