Nicole and I actually met on Tinder. I think a mobile dating app is the last place anyone actually expects to meet their future husband or wife, but I'd say it worked out pretty well for us. She must have seen something in my bio that piqued her interest because she sent me a "super like" (which she swears was an accident to this day). I very rarely received any super likes, so I figured I'd introduce myself. I started off the conversation with "Hi, I'm Isaac" as if she didn't already know that from my Tinder bio. But she said hi back and before we knew it we were planning our first in-person date. It was October 2021, and Halloween was right around the corner. At every risk of sounding crazy, I suggested a date to a local haunted house attraction. I guess we were both in the holiday spirit because she let a strange man off the internet hold her hand and walk her through a haunted corn maze in the dark. And I'm so grateful she did. We hit it off all night with great conversation, and by the end of the first date, she was already checking all the right boxes. I already knew she was intelligent, beautiful, funny, and shared my faith and morals. She must have felt the same way because she let me take her on a second date the next week. Throughout the next few months, we both realized that we weren't just another random Tinder match, but that we were falling hard for each other and truly had found something special. God works in mysterious ways, and He brought us the partner we had always prayed about in a way that we were least expecting.

Goldwater Lake in Prescott, AZ has written its way into our love story almost without us knowing it. It was the site of our second date together. We both had Covid at the time and couldn't go into work. So we decided to beat the heat of Phoenix and drive up north for a day trip. We both love fishing and Nicole had said that she knew a good lake to fish and hang out at. So we drove to Goldwater and spent the better part of the afternoon not catching any fish but still enjoying each other's company and making great memories. Fast forward two years later. We take another trip to Goldwater because we had just learned that it can be used as a wedding venue and Nicole wanted to scout it out as a possible future wedding spot. Little did she know that I had planned to propose to her at the lake way before we knew they held weddings there. We got to the lake and scouted out the area, and right as we were about to leave I knelt to the ground and proposed to her by the water's edge. She said yes! And as a bonus, we liked the venue for our wedding too. Second date, proposal, and wedding will all be tied together by this super special place in our hearts. And we can't wait for all of our family and friends attending the wedding to experience the magic of this little lake in the pines that we hold so close to our hearts.