They met online and, because they lived over an hour apart, they talked for several weeks before meeting in person. “I met him in Cedar Falls on a Saturday in June. We had lunch and then walked to a park bench by Big Woods Lake and sat and talked for a long time.” Before leaving, they decided to see each other again the next day and he gave her a kiss as she left. “I don’t remember a single thing about the drive home,” Michelle said. “I was in such a daze from the kiss.”

Within a couple of months, Michelle knew she would marry him and nearly a year after they first met, he proposed while they were on a biking trip in Minnesota. “We were riding the trail from Cannon Falls to Redwing and I had stopped at the bench we had turned around at the first time we had ridden the trail. James got down on one knee (on the gravel!!) and asked me to marry him.”

They are both self-described introverts and are quiet, but in the kindest, gentlest of ways. It was a delight to photograph them. They are getting married next spring and Michelle said, “I want to grow old with him, holding hands with him through all our experiences together. I want to see his smile every day for the rest of my life.”