There’s a bit of discrepancy as to when they first met. Amanda says it was in Indianapolis when the Iowa Hawkeyes were playing in the Big 10 Championship, but Tyler says it was in Pasadena at the Rose Bowl. Tyler was friends with Amanda’s older brother, who lived in Santa Monica at the time, so a group went out there for a long weekend. “I had been friends with Amanda’s brother, Mike, for several years prior to this, and the rule always was that no one was allowed to talk to her because he didn’t want his friends dating his sister. Fast forward to the game where he had the tickets and he sat us next to each other. We spent the game chatting and the hung out for a couple days after. We were both living in Iowa City at the time so she messages me after we got back and we went on our first date…without telling Mike we were seeing each other.” (Mike is going to be a part of the bridal party so one could say he’s on board now!)

“We had been talking about marriage for a little while (I even had the ring already) so I felt like I was ready to propose, but I had no idea how to do it. We were living in Salt Lake City and I worked up in the mountains. One morning when driving to work I saw a hot air balloon and knew that would be an awesome way to propose. I contacted a company and scheduled a sunrise flight on Labor Day weekend and told Amanda I would like to get up early and drive up into the mountains. (Hilarious side note, she knew I was up to something, but assumed I wanted to watch the sunrise in the mountains. Our balloon ride was scheduled for 45 minutes after the sun was up, so she was grumpy that I wanted her to get up early and we had already missed sunrise.) We got up to Park City and pulled into the parking lot and she saw the vehicle with the balloon on the back and started crying! (We had talked about how fun it would be to do a hot air balloon ride.) I had the ring with me the whole time, but the basket was kind of cramped and I was nervous I would drop the ring. So we had a fantastic balloon ride, and after they landed it in the field, I asked the other passengers if they could get a picture of us in front of the balloon before it got deflated, and I proposed.” (Amanda says she thought he was going to propose during the balloon ride so really, the surprise was in the suspense!)

I had so much fun with these two during their session! We hit it off immediately and, with just a few more weeks left before their wedding day, I know we are going to have so much fun all over again in October! They are funny and genuine and caring and watching the love between them is such a treat.