I met Lauren in the fall of 2022 at her sister’s wedding and I doubt she would’ve guessed then that just a couple of months later, she’d be on a date with her future husband. She knew who Thomas was for a while because he worked at the church her sister got married at. “I’d started going there because of my sister so I was aware of who he was, but hadn’t thought anything of it until I saw him on Hinge (after my sister made me make a profile!). But instead of doing anything about it, I just closed the app and decided to do my own ‘research’ for a few weeks before I saw him online again and finally said hi. We chatted for a few weeks before we were actually able to go on a date…the whole time going to the same church and never talking there until after we went on a date! So the first time we met in person was our first date, but Hinge and church made it happen.”

Thomas recalled, “We went to Tavern Blue on the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving. I like to joke that it was like a scene out of the show Bar Rescue; very empty, kind of quiet. Once we sat down together, I just remember how easy it was for us to talk to each other. The conversation never lacked, we just talked. We were on the same page with pretty much everything.”

Within just a few months, they both knew the other was their one. Thomas planned for almost the whole summer how he was going to propose. “Ahh, it was so perfect! I love this story!” said Lauren. “It was a football Saturday in September and we had tickets to the game and had planned to have brunch with our families at Tin Roost that morning. (All of this seemed plausible enough to me since his mom likes to plan things like that.) The night before, he told me we had to make a quick stop at the church on the way to brunch so he could get some ‘before’ pictures of the overgrown path around our church that he claimed his youth group was going to clean up for a service project. Normally, I might’ve questioned things, but luckily, I only had a few hours of sleep in me so I was more concerned about him making me wake up early than I was about anything else.

“We got to the church and headed out on the path, him taking ‘fake’ pictures behind me while I walked like a tightrope on a hose in the middle of the path blissfully unaware! I even laid down on a bench and posed like a goof at one point! I was clueless! He eventually put his arm around me and started saying he loved me and all the nice things…still, I didn’t quite realize what was happening! After all, he’s a cheesy romantic like that sometimes! Finally, I was looking at the apple trees and he got me to turn around and there he was down on one knee!

“I was shocked and didn’t really know what to do…thankfully he said I nodded yes, because I know it took me a couple minutes to say anything! I just wanted to hug him! After a couple minutes, I heard the shutter of a camera and turned and saw he’d had our friend hidden with a camera to capture the whole thing! Then he had another surprise! We took a couple quick posed photos and then he walked me into the church where he had both of our families (and our Pastor Rob was so excited he’d stopped downstairs too)! Turned out, brunch at Tin Roost was a lie – instead they’d all brought brunch to us and he’d set up pictures, balloons, and flowers in the church for us! It was the perfect way to celebrate!

“That day we tailgated with his family who were ready with cookies and champagne to celebrate us and, with the help of our families, he had a message put up on the scoreboard at the game celebrating our engagement! (Since I’d told him he couldn’t actually propose at a game, hah!) The next day Pastor Rob even announced our engagement in the middle of church! He was so excited he couldn’t hold it in! Definitely a weekend I’ll never forget!”

This fall (just three days shy of her sister and brother-in-law’s 2nd anniversary!), Lauren and Thomas are getting married at the same church (with the same photographer *chef’s kiss*). “I’m so excited to get married in a place that means so much to us!” Lauren said. “From my sister getting married in this church to it being a huge part of Thomas and my relationship…just being in that space celebrating will be so special! I’m also just really excited for all the special little moments throughout the day: putting on my dress with my mom and sister, doing our first look, walking down the aisle, our first dance, dancing with my dad… I’m excited to make the day fun with the people we love and who love us most!”

For their engagement session, they wanted to go to the waterfalls at Lake MacBride. Every time I go there, it looks different. Different seasons make the landscape change drastically, but also, the water levels are very temperamental. Sometimes there is literally no water at the top of the falls and other times, it’s torrential. We had the very best luck with it being right in the middle: perfect. Enough water to give us the best visual and soundtrack to the session, but not too much that we couldn’t use different dry spaces throughout. We did have to navigate a lot of other people there–it was, after all, a gorgeous Saturday evening–but with some creative positioning, we made it look like they have the place to themselves. It was stunning!! But even better, their chemistry made this session so fun and easy.