How We Met
I had just moved back home to Portland from Las Vegas. It was a warm, gorgeous evening in June and my phone was blowing up from friends I hadn’t seen in a while. I am not a huge fan of bars, but I soon found out that evening had something special in store for me. I was meeting a childhood friend to catch up and have a drink at a local country bar and she shared she was bringing a friend along. As I arrived to the bar she told me to head over to their car, so I could meet her friend and we’d walk in together. With no expectations, I opened up the car door to say hello and introduce myself… Nothing came out. I couldn’t speak. Interrupting the silence she said, “Hi I’m Eden!” Embarrassed, (which does NOT happen to me easily) I simply said “Hey I’m Matt”, and we all headed inside. While walking, I couldn’t help to notice the beauty she possessed from her long blonde hair and her stunning, vibrant blue eyes, all the way down to the tip of her boots. Immediately I sensed something between us. Quite often I’d find myself staring at her as much as I’d catch her peeking at me. Being the gentleman that I am, I bought the girls a drink and I was smitten with a surprising turn of events. When Eden got hers, she took the orange and squeezed it into the drink. She looked over with an adorable smile and put her fingers up to my lips. I licked the orange juice off of her fingers and couldn’t remember a darn thing after that… You could say I was drunk on love.
how they asked
I had been anxious for about a month wanting to propose to the girl of my dreams. Eden and I, being college students, knew we couldn’t afford the rings we really wanted but decided to go window shopping. Little did Eden know that I had already made arrangements with Shane Company that whatever she wanted they were to hold for me and I would return to make the purchase the next day. One month later, on the morning of March 18th I had set a plan in motion to surprise my girl. With my parents celebrating their 30th anniversary the next week, I told Eden my parents bought a buy one get one free photo shoot. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I wanted to take full advantage of it. We shopped together for matching outfits and I paid for her to get her hair and make-up done the morning of so she’d feel beautiful and be stress free about it. I wanted everything to be perfect. Just a few minutes into the photoshoot Alexandra, our photographer who did an amazing job capturing our love story, asked Eden to turn around and walk away from me. Alexandra explained this would be a Matt chasing Eden moment. This was my cue to prepare for the moment I had been waiting for all day. A preplanned surprise, for me to quickly approach Eden and take a knee. Alexandra then said, “Now turn around and look back at Matt for me.” When she turned around, I was waiting to ask her the question of a lifetime, “Baby, I love you very much. Will you spend the rest of your life with me?”
