They met six years ago in downtown Iowa City on a football game day. Mallory was looking for a friend and Edo, seeing her looking around, asked if she needed help. It was the beginning of their forever. That day, they ended up grabbing some drinks together, exchanged numbers and, after that night, “he kept calling me asking to hang out and I never turned him down. Eventually, we became inseparable.” Their first official date was a low key treat at a local Dairy Queen that sits right next to the Iowa River that flows through the center of the city. “I suggested that we sit somewhere outside to watch an eclipse that was supposed to happen that night. We lived in apartments fairly close to each other so we agreed to meet and walk to Dairy Queen. We sat at a picnic table and talked for hours. I remember having such good conversation that I think we forgot all about the eclipse.”

They had been dating for five years when he asked her to look at rings. She remembers telling him that they “weren’t there yet.” She says she doesn’t make any decisions lightly and she wanted to be 100% sure he was the one. Less than 2 months later, however, it hit her: “I can’t and don’t want to ever live without him in my life. A few weeks later, we went to look at rings.” Edo says, for him, it was after dating a few years. “I realized how much we love and support each other.”

This past August, a few months after looking at rings, Edo proposed. “We were canoeing on a lake on the border of Minnesota and Canada that day,” Mallory says. “We stopped on shore for a bite to eat and to walk around. I started to walk around the island and he followed me, saying to me, ‘I love you’ over and over, about twenty times. I thought he was acting weird and about ten seconds before he proposed, I realized that’s what he was going to do. He got on one knee and asked me to marry him. I couldn’t control my tears at all! Finally, I said, ‘Put that ring on my finger!‘”

When I ask them what they admire most about the other, Mallory says it’s “his dedication to do the right thing and his intense interest in always learning more.” Edo says, quite simply, that he admires “everything about her. She is loving, supportive, and always honest.” They love to travel and, most recently this year, have gotten into hiking and love spending time outside. “He loves to cook and I love to eat,” so there’s also that perfect yin yang.

These two are a joy to hang out with and we had so much fun together this past Friday evening! I’m so excited to share some of my favorite images from their session.