He asked & I said a 1000% YES!

We met on new years eve in 2022 on an almost blind date after chatting a little bit through the dating app Hinge (Seth hadn't realized that Saturday was New Years Eve and Jess just thought this guy must be pretty confident and bold to be asking a girl out on an evening of fireworks and traditional midnight kisses). We met up at a wine bar called Carboy, though neither of us are wine connoisseurs, we enjoyed trying a few house blends and chatting through the classic first date questions. The entire time we were both like "wow, this person is pretty amazing". As we finished our wine, Seth suggested we grab food, and the evening continued with more chats over appetizers and lots of story telling. As the clock neared 10pm, Seth again boldly asked if we should go for a walk and Jess suggested we head downtime to the New Years Eve celebration of DJs, dancing, and fireworks. Though the evening didn't end in a midnight kiss, the evening was full of fireworks.. literally and metaphorically haha

After a year of dating, we started to slowly talk about marriage. Both of us felt confident that we would be together for the long haul but also wanted to be intentional in entering into the next session of our relationship. One of the ways we wanted to be intentional was in working through the book Eight Dates by Julie and John Gottman and determining what marriage meant to each of us. We also started to talk to friends and family and getting their thoughts and opinions on our relationship and this decision. Seth wanted to make the actual engagement a surprise, so Jess tried really hard not to ask too many questions or take the reigns and propose to Seth (it would have been adorable). So unbeknownst to Jess, Seth got the ring and planned to propose during a 4-day backpacking trip of the Rito Alto Four Pass Loop. The trip started July 4th and we hiked 12 miles and 4000 feet of elevation gain to make it to our first campsite of the trip. We found this amazing site in the bowl below our next pass that overlooked the valley below with an already established fire pit (and no deadfalls...tall order). It was beautiful! We made dinner, chatted, rested, and built a fire as the temperature started to drop into the evening. As we were sitting by the fire, chatting, and celebrating another holiday together, Seth pulls out a box and says "I don't think I can continue to carry this anymore". Seth proposes, I say a "1000% yes!", and we take the worst photos but don't even care because we are both just so happy! We spent the next three days backpacking and exploring together... it was perfect!