Our Time at the Session
As I was taking a stroll in the Rose Gardens and formulating a small plan for Kelly & Kyle's arrival I saw them park right behind me where I greeted them with their chocolates & other goodies. We hugged, chatted a bit & started capturing moments where I was hiding in bushes creating some amazing moments. 20 minutes into the session we were interrupted by Mikey & Casey, (friends of Kelly & Kyle) where Kelly was proudly showing off her bling. 😄 This was a fun session for all of us as we were adventuring the whole park discovering new areas & trying new techniques. I hope you enjoy their story (as told by them), & the moments we captured. Did I mention it was windy? Oh it was WINDY.
They Met
Kyle and I met playing volleyball. I worked at a summer camp and my boss at the time ran a sand league and also had a team. They needed a sub for a game and he knew I played so he asked if I could sub and play with them for a few games. I arrived at the sand court and was introduced to the other players on the team. Kyle was one of them. We ended up playing next to each other during the game and he was kind of a ball hog... he jumped in front of me a few times— not totally uncommon for new people playing next to each other. I don’t remember if I said something or if he just eventually backed off but he did stop and we won all of the games that night. We started talking after the game and talked pretty consistently every day after that night. I subbed a few other times for the team as well and he didn’t jump in front of me any other games and our team won a cookie cake at the end of the season.
Proposal Story
At the time, I was usually working until around 5 pm during the week so Kyle gets home before me and we don’t have to switch parking spots in the driveway. I leave first in the morning and then he doesn’t have to wake up early to move his car so I can leave. I got home a little earlier than I normally do. I opened the front door and there was a note on the floor. It said something about him not being home because he was running but he listed a clue for me to find something in our house. The clue said I brought ‘this’ on our first date. We spent our first date playing a bunch of board games and card games and I brought a Rubik’s cube. So I went to where we have the Rubik’s cubes and there was another clue attached to one of them. He sent me throughout our house finding different things related to the two of us... a volleyball (how we met), Nittany Lion pillow pet (I went to PSU and we try to go to at least one football game every year), a stuffed animal husky puppy he won for me playing skeeball at Knoebels, the bottle of champagne his aunt gave to us when we first bought our house. The last clue told me to “go where we would look to order something to eat.” We keep our menus in a drawer in our office so I opened the drawer looking for another clue and there was a huge paperweight fake diamond in it (which I later found out was passed around to the guys in his family... his uncle gave it to one of his older brothers, who gave it to his cousin, who then passed it on to Kyle each when they were going to propose) I took it out looking for another clue and couldn’t find one, so I turned around and he was behind me on one knee with a ring. He didn’t say anything, so I looked at him grinning, and asked him if there was a question he wanted to ask me. He asked me if I wanted to marry him, and of course, I said YES! The scavenger hunt was perfect for me because I love puzzles. When I first started the scavenger hunt, I had a feeling he was going to propose but I would have been completely fine just doing the scavenger hunt. I also heard his phone beep at one point during the scavenger hunt so I knew he was indeed at home and not running but I thought he was in the bathroom. So I just causally kept running back and forth from one part of our house to another finding all of the clues. He said I completed it a lot faster than he thought I would and was also thrown off because I got home early that day. He said he heard my car door shut and ran to hide. I’ll never forget this story!
Favorite Part of Being Engaged
We had been dating for 5 years and living together for 3 years before Kyle proposed, so not much has really changed now that we are engaged other than saying fiancé instead of boyfriend/girlfriend. Our favorite part was telling people that we were engaged and seeing their reactions. Our parents all knew it was happening, but they were excited for us, and telling everyone else was a blast. I remember wanting to go to work the next day just so I could tell some of my friends. We were going to see the majority of Kyle’s friends for Halloween so we held off calling them individually so we could tell them in person. We (or at least I since Kyle doesn’t really post on social media) intentionally didn’t post it on social media because we wanted to tell people ourselves. We walked up hand in hand at the Halloween party and Kyle announced we had news and told them all at once. They were totally surprised and so happy for us! I still remember the look on some of their faces. It was priceless!
Advice from the Couple
Try to stay as organized as possible and communication is key! We made a spreadsheet with multiple pages (venues, groom’s guest list, bride’s guest list, etc), and any time we contacted someone we updated the spreadsheet. Especially because we divided and conquered a lot of things. This was really helpful when booking appointments to see venues and keeping potential dates and sizes of venues in mind. Kyle took care of some phone calls and I took care of others so we had to constantly be on the same page to make sure all of the contracts, appointments, and checks got taken care of and all of the important dates ended up on both of our calendars.
