It all started in March of 2020 when the world had shut down due to COVID-19.... I (Danielle) was living in Chester, VA and Justin was living in Warren, PA. We had known each other in passing from middle/high school and were friends on Facebook. I had a dream that Justin was riding on a bus with me in Morgantown. In April, after several weeks of thinking about how out of the blue it was, I messaged Justin on Facebook to tell him about the dream and see if he was doing alright. We messaged back and forth for a bit and the next day decided to talk on the phone. That phone call lasted 2 hours and the one after almost 4 hours. We never did stop talking after that. Because the world was shut down, I was able to go see Justin in PA. I spent some time with him there in May and then he came to visit me in VA. Only 2.5 months after connecting, Justin moved to VA with me and we've been together ever since. Here we are almost 4 years later, getting ready to walk down the aisle to forever together!

Justin had talked about going to Coopers Rock several times over the years and had finally planned a day for us to go together to hike around the park and go fishing at Cheat Lake. The day we had planned started just like any other.... with the news that smoke from wildfires in Canada would be making its way across WV and the air quality was going to be very poor.... I should have seen the irony in the fact that another catastrophe was occurring on such a big day for us since our relationship started at the beginning of a global pandemic. We decided to go anyways in hopes of the smoke clearing enough for us to still enjoy the day. My initial outfit was track shorts and a t-shirt, but Justin had left his hair out of its typical ponytail and I was slightly suspicious, so I changed into a black shirt and jean shorts(with some subtle pushing from my friends, who knew what was happening.) We arrived at Coopers Rock and the smoke had not cleared, but the view is beautiful no matter how far you can see out. We walked around the edge of the overlook & I turned to look off into the distance so Justin could snap a picture, and when I turned around he was on one knee! And my friend(and our lovely photographer) Kristen (Captures By Kristen Photography) came running out of nowhere to capture the whole thing. Apparently she had been hiding in the woods, waiting for the moment. We spent the next hour having our own little engagement photo shoot. Then, we spent the rest of the day walking the parks and fishing before we had a nice dinner on the outside deck of The Lakehouse. It ended up being the perfect day despite the wildfire smoke!