How We Met
Chris and I met in September of 2011 at his college house in Lexington, KY. Although our first meeting was brief (a quick “Hello, my name is..”), we continued to run into each other and started to hang out in the same group of friends. A friendship quickly formed and that friendship became a crush. After about a year, that crush turned into a relationship and our relationship has only built from there. I’ve never truly understood what it meant to date your best friend until Chris. Getting to know each other for a year made dating a breeze, and I’ve known for a long time (maybe even before we started officially dating) that I could spend the rest of my life with him.
how they asked
Michael, Chris’ brother, asked me if Chris and I would be “models” for his photography website. Michael is an extremely talented photographer who I already knew had been working on growing his clientele. Without hesitation, I agreed but warned Michael that pictures are not Chris’ “thing” and would probably have to do some extra convincing on Chris’ end. He said he wasn’t worried because Chris wouldn’t be able to say no if I had already agreed. I knew very little about the details of what we would be doing, where we would be going, etc., but just trusted Michael give us all the directions we needed. When the day came for the photoshoot, Chris acted frustrated about the whole thing, because like I said, pictures aren’t his “thing.” But reluctantly, he went along with everything because I was clearly looking forward to getting some nice new pictures of the two of us. Mother Nature was on our side for this one because it snowed the night before we took the pictures and set a gorgeous white setting for us in the area that Michael chose. Everything went smoothly and soon Michael pulled out two chalkboards that he brought along with him and said, “Okay, we’re going to do something cheesy!” I was all about it. He told us to write our favorite qualities about each other on the chalkboards, then show them to each other and he would take pictures of our reaction. The romantic in me could hardly handle how cute this idea was, and thought how much other couples that Michael would take pictures for would love to do the same thing (clearly, I was completely clueless). It started with writing our favorite physical features; we both wrote down ‘His smile/Her smile’. Then we wrote down our favorite personality feature; I wrote ‘his laugh and sense of humor’, he wrote ‘her loving spirit’. Then finally, Michael said “Chris, you turn around and Alexa will write her favorite memory of the two of you.” So when Chris turned back around, I had written, ‘when he first said I love you’. When it was my turn to face the other direction, I felt like I was turned around for a lot longer than Chris was. I finally asked if I could see what he wrote, and Michael told me to turn around. To my complete surprise, Chris had written down ‘Right now… Will you marry me?’. Shock immediately turned to tears and as Chris is spilling out the sweet speech he had been rehearsing in his head, he got down on one knee and pulled out the ring box. Meanwhile, Michael is still photographing everything and I now have the most perfect pictures to remember that day. After some celebrating between the two of us (and Michael) Chris took my hand and led me to a restaurant in walking distance where both of our families were waiting to surprise us. That moment was more than I could have ever hoped for and it took me the rest of the weekend to fully grasp that we are getting MARRIED!
