How We Met: When I moved to LA right after finishing college, I was single, unemployed, and knew only a handful of people, so I decided to make dating my full-time hobby. I signed up for a few different dating websites and met dozens of guys–I was doing two dates a day, three on weekends! It was a blast, and a great way to meet some locals and discover cool spots around the city. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the guy I met on my very first LA date. After sitting next to each other for about five minutes in the restaurant lobby before realizing we were each other’s date, we had an amazing brunch–he was instantly easy to talk to and shared my passion for bottomless mimosas. Now every year on our anniversary we make brunch together at home, and we still get to have bottomless mimosas!
how they asked: Joel is a wedding photographer and I’m a romance novelist, so I guess you could call us both romantics! While we were on an Alaskan cruise with my family, we visited the Mendenhall Glacier, and I was disappointed to discover that you couldn’t actually walk on the glacier–at least not without renting special gear and hiking like ten miles to get up there, and I’m not an outdoorsy kind of girl! But as we were heading back to the ship, Joel said he had a surprise for me: he’d secretly booked another excursion, for just the two of us, on a helicopter to the Herbert Glacier!
I should have known then that something was up, but I was too excited about the trip. Or maybe too nervous about my first helicopter ride. But the views from the air were so gorgeous I forgot all about my nerves, and walking on the glacier was incredible (especially for a California girl who’s only seen snow a handful of times in her life!). Joel said he wanted a picture of us, so he set up the shot and gave his camera to the pilot. Then he came to stand beside me, but instead of putting his arm around me he dropped down onto one knee and pulled out this stunning ring! I was so surprised–and impressed that he’d chosen such a beautiful, perfect ring even though we’d never looked at rings together–I just stood there gaping while Joel told me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and the pilot snapped photos like crazy. But I did have enough brain function left to say yes, of course!
Photos by Joel Danto