We connected for the first time on 1/29/23 while serving/greeting at the sanctuary doors of True North Church. Small talk led to sharing pictures of dream houses in Salem County, which led to discussing bow hunting and the woods. I commented on my dream house, "You know it's a good house when you see a deer head on the wall." We both connected on the desire to move to Salem County, NJ and Lou shared his desire to sell his home and move there after his deployment in the Army. I thought he was really cute, but when my friend Julianna asked me what he looked like, all I could remember was, "He's got kind eyes and a cute smile." I helped schedule people for the host team at church so I texted my friend, Juan, to see if I could contact Lou to schedule him again. He gave me his number, but also told me that he thought Lou had liked me. I reached out first on 2/1 and we have not stopped talking since.

We love hunting and the woods, so enjoying nature is one of our favorite pastimes! The plan on 7/30/23 was to go out to the woods where his stand and blind were. Lou said he needed to sell a car with his dad before we left for the woods (it didn't occur to me that it was a cover because i didn't remember that you can't sell a car on Sundays). When we got to the woods, we found Lou's stand and then headed deeper into the woods where he had a ground blind. When we walked to the 2nd spot, I looked behind me because I thought I heard a deer. As I turned, Lou got down on one knee--I thought he was hurt so I asked him what was wrong. He was not hurt! He told me that he could sacrifice his life, yet still not deserve me. We both cried for joy as he pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him. I nodded and said excitedly, "Yes!" We hugged one another for a moment. All of a sudden, I heard romantic orchestra music followed by romantic jazz music and I looked behind Lou and saw Styven Jeune hiding in the grass! (He later told me the romantic jazz music was a random car passing by). He had captured our special moment without me knowing. I was so shocked/surprised and excited that I called my mom and dad t tell them and then we headed to his parents' house to tell them before we headed to church. As we pulled up to the house, I saw balloons overtop the fence line and realized that we were probably not going to make the 1pm service that he told me we were headed to as soon as we were done at his parents. My family and his family and my bridal party were all there to surprise me. We are so blessed today and are excited to share this next moment with everyone when we become husband and wife!