Our Story

It might sound cheesy and a little sappy, but here’s the true story! It all started on August 20th, 2018, a.k.a the day we separately moved into different dorms at Grand Valley State University. I felt a mix of nerves and excitement, thinking of how I was about to begin a new chapter of life completely on my own. I didn’t know a single person, I was in a brand-new state, and I was exactly 350 miles away from home. A recipe for some loneliness I was sure.

The same night as move-in, the university hosted a block party to help freshmen meet and mingle right outside my dorm building. My brand-new roommate, who I had only known for a few hours, suggested we check it out together. I agreed, figuring it couldn’t hurt.

After some time standing around making awkward small talk with each other, we were approached by two other girls who were clearly much more outgoing than we were. One of them excitedly told us she had spotted someone across the crowd that she recognized from high school. That someone just so happened to be Connor’s random roommate… and Connor, of course, was right there with him. We all started talking and didn’t stop until 2 or 3 in the morning. The next 3 nights in a row were the same in different places. There wasn't a moment we ran out of something to say to each other. It all felt easy and natural. And almost exactly a month later, Connor and I were officially dating.

Everything began on the day I thought I’d have to start facing life alone, and Connor made sure that was never the case.

♡ Written by Olivia

♡ Edited by Connor

October, 5th 2024 – We had been building up to this moment for 6 years. I had finally gotten a ring a few months prior and worked out a way to ask Olivia to marry me. We were reaching the end of a very busy summer and I wanted to propose before things started getting too crazy with classes again. All summer we had talked about doing a picnic. This sounded like the perfect cover for a proposal, but I didn’t want to propose just anywhere. I knew Olivia wanted it to be somewhere scenic and private. The best place I thought to do it at was somewhere we had been multiple times before: PJ Hoffmaster State Park. The view of Lake Michigan from up on top of the forested dunes would make the perfect back drop for a proposal picture.

Now came the task of convincing Olivia to go all the way over to the other side of the state on a random Saturday without a proposal being too obvious. Lucky for me, around this time Olivia was looking to get some new headshots taken for job hunting which lined up perfectly with my plans.  Pictures, Lake, Picnic, The Perfect Setup! Because of the coincidental timing of all this, Olivia completely convinced herself and was totally unaware of my plans (or so she says [I do say!]).

The next day we packed up and headed on over to Lake Michigan. I even managed to sneak a bottle of champagne into the picnic basket and the ring to the car. After getting some good headshot photos. We had a picnic place in mind that we had used as a hammock spot before; not easy to find while wearing jeans, hauling a basket, and hiking in the heat, but we got there eventually. After cooling down it was time for pictures. Thankfully, we always set our phone up somewhere and start a recording to do a bunch of different poses. While she adjusted the angle, I slipped the ring box into my pocket. We started with a few shots sitting down, then as we stood up for more pictures, I helped her to her feet, moved to one knee, and ring in hand, asked her to marry me.

♡ Written by Connor

♡ Edited by Olivia

Don't go thinking I forgot to incude some pictures from our offical engamenet photo shoot! Fun fact: these photos were taken exactly 1 year after we got engaged! Same spot too (;