Ethan and I's story starts with being overly involved at our college church, St. John Catholic Student Center. Individually, since our freshman years, Ethan and I spent many hours at the church. Our paths would cross occasionally in undergrad, but didn't really intertwine until we both graduated. I had to lockup the church late at night after our student Mass and Ethan would always say, “a pretty girl like you shouldn’t be walking around here by yourself.” So his response was to join me as I made my rounds. He also started helping me do dishes after Sunday student dinners which then turned into one, two, even six hour conversations in the parking lot of the church. We naturally became best friends over a few short months and got brought closer and closer by God until, one day, we stopped being stubborn and let His plan take over. Fr. Chris Daigle has been in both of our lives separately since we were young. Funny enough, he tried to get us to date one another as freshmen in college, but we shrugged him off. Little did we know, he was right all along!

From the beginning, I told Ethan I didn't care what he did in terms of a proposal except for one thing - I wanted it to be a surprise. Knowing this, Ethan told hardly anyone his plans. Him and his brother, Chance, convinced me that they wanted to take pictures at the OSU Botanical Gardens for their mom for Christmas. Ethan told me I would need to be the photographer, but that I needed to dress up a little so we could get a couple snaps too. After a while, Chance and I switched camera responsibility and Ethan started whispering sweet things into my ear. I thought he was just trying to make me laugh for the camera, but as soon as he reached into his pocket I knew then what was happening. He got down on one knee and said, “Lauren Mae will you marry me?" Of course my answer was yes and he pulled off a total surprise!