sending our love

We initially met in 2013 volunteering at Camp Sunshine. For those who don't know, Camp Sunshine is a retreat for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families on Sebago Lake in Casco, Maine. While volunteering in 2016, our friendship grew into something more and we began talking daily. Ally moved to Saint Louis to begin grad school and we decided to continue putting effort into the friendship we were developing. When Forrest flew to Saint Louis to visit, the connection between us could not be denied, and we decided to try dating long distance. We survived the long 2 years living in different time zones, and a few times each year, we still continue to return to the place where our connection blossomed - Camp Sunshine!

On the morning of August 3, 2019, Forrest and Ally headed into Boston to meet up with Forrest's friends from college for the day (at least that's what Ally thought the plan was). We went out to breakfast and then started walking back to the car when a photographer came up to us asking to take our picture for a "Humans of Boston" project she was doing (shout out to Kristen Pompey - a family friend of Forrest's that Ally had never met - for being a great liar). After taking some pictures and answering some of her questions, she took us to Acorn Street (a.k.a the most photographed spot Boston) where she asked Ally to check out her portfolio on her iPad. Ally was clueless up until this point, but then Kristen started playing a video that Ally soon realized was Forrest's proposal. He wrote a poem that he read while a slideshow of pictures from our three years together played. At the conclusion of the video, Forrest popped the question and Ally said yes! The surprises didn't stop there... we went back to Forrest's house to celebrate with "our immediate families" (another lie :-P) and Ally was shocked by walking into a surprise celebration of ~50 people - including her best friends from college that made the trip to MA from the Midwest. It was a weekend full of wonderful surprises and gratitude for our loved ones, and we are truly blessed to have the most incredible people in our lives. We're excited to celebrate all over again on the wedding day!