Ashley + Ryan

It was a sticky humid August evening in 2016 when me and Ryan met at university. A mutual friend introduced us at a party and so the story goes - I was hardheaded, independent, and curt with no interest in absolutely anyone. But that night Ryan insisted on walking me back home so I wasn’t in the city alone at night… and the rest was pretty much history.

We talked for months before I let him take me on a date (which might I add, was incredibly romantic for a 22-year-old boy in a fraternity) to an art museum. And in the weeks following that we found ourselves sitting in my favorite park on a picnic blanket, under fuchsia colored Crepe Myrtle’s, where he asked me to be his girlfriend. That was over seven years ago now.

Since then, we’ve shared and experienced so much together - long distance while he lived in New York, loss, a global pandemic while we were 2000 miles apart, more life changes than we could’ve ever imagined, multiple existential crises (made infinitely more manageable with the other by our side), and eventually moving to Utah together.

We’ve always done things our way, even if it didn’t make sense to the other people in our life - but it always brought us closer together. Ryan was incredibly observant and patient, waiting for just the right moment in our lives to make that leap. He wasn’t going to propose when we were madly in love broke college kids, or when I decided move across the country to be with him, or when we were still navigating what we wanted from life.

So, he waited, until a really cold damp week in October when the leaves were all shades of orange, yellow, and red. We went to stay at a historic lodge in the mountains where we ate way too much food, played in the creek with our dogs, & eventually went on a hike. I was so unsuspecting & didn’t become even slightly suspicious when there was a photographer taking photos of the waterfall, or when Ryan made me take off my jacket, or when he told me to turn around so he could snap a picture. After a few seconds too long, he finally told me to turn around and popped the question. I would share more about that moment, but I definitely blacked out. Somewhere between my constant crying, laughing, & asking “wait is this real??” he finally put the ring on my finger - because the answer has ALWAYS been yes.