It was 2 weeks after Justin moved to Denver from New York. He had a couple interesting dates (ask him about the crazy girl that chewed gum their ENTIRE date, even while eating pizza and somehow got it stuck in her hair...) and then he made that one swipe on Hinge that would change his life forever. Lauren-Claire was running her business at the time and not really interested in a relationship. While out with her friends one afternoon, they passed around her phone and created a Hinge profile to force her into "getting back out there". She didn't love the app, but she did have a conversation with one super funny, (he somehow worked the functionality of cargo shorts into his dating profile) super handsome guy (yes, he was shirtless in his first photo) that she couldn't stop thinking about. Their schedules were quite opposite at the time, between Lauren-Claire's business and Justin's heavy work travel, so it took a few tries to get a date on the calendar. Their schedules finally aligned and he took her to a swanky new bar in RiNo for their first date. The rest is history.

The first year they were dating, Justin took Lauren-Claire on their first trip together, to a beautiful resort in Mexico. The first night they were there, they were walking on the beach and a random hotel photographer asked to take photos of them. Some of you will remember these photos because they looked like engagement photos...much too early in the relationship :) 2 years later, Justin took her on a pre-Christmas vacation to the very same resort. The day they arrived, Justin was acting very nervous and strange. They were put in a room with a broken safe (where he planned to hide the ring) so he proceeded to carry his backpack around everywhere they went. He told Lauren-Claire that he had arranged a photographer to take photos of them on the beach because he "knew she would want a good photo of them like last time". They walked out onto the beach at sunset and as they walked out onto the pier, Justin said "woah, look at the dolphin" and pointed the other direction. Lauren-Claire looked for the dolphin. When she turned back around, Justin was down on one knee. The rest is history!