Our Engagement Story
Allow me to start this story by telling you a little bit about Christian and I.
We’ve been friends for 10 years, flirting close to 7, and dating for the last 4.5 We’ve been engaged a little over a week :)
We were raised in the same little mountain town of Evergreen, CO, which isn’t so little or quiet anymore. We grew up 2.9 miles from each other along the same county road.
We went to rival high schools, and still beef about it to this day. Although our families frequented the same drug stores, Baskin Robbins, and local chili cookoffs, we never crossed paths as children.
In 2011, I took a gargantuan leap and moved to Seattle for my undergrad, where in a twist of fate, I ended up meeting some girls from my hometown (hi Kellie and Jennifer! :)). It was a breath of fresh air knowing some mountain folks while I was acclimating to my bustling new city life. (shoutout to the grimey Seattle era from 10 years ago, you have my heart forever.)
Fast forward to 2013, Kellie and I were both back in CO for the summer and she invited me on a camping trip with her and some of her guy friends. She was the only girl and didn’t want to go alone, so I came as backup ;)
We arrived past dusk and saw that there was already a campfire burning and a smattering of tents setup. We parked the car and took our seat around the fire. I remember meeting all the guys, already smelling of fire smoke and cheap beer. Christian was amongst them.
I remember our meeting most vividly, probably because he was the most cool and distant towards me. In retrospect, he was definitely trying to be the “cool,” laid back guy. Not too pressed, not too eager. I honestly didn’t think he liked me at first!
He sat across me from the campfire, brooding over a bottle of Southern Comfort and periodically stealing glances at me between swigs. My first impression? He struck me kind of a jock because he kept talking about whey protein and weight lifting. I also didn’t like whiskey, so turned him down every time he offered me a swig 😂
We remained friendly every time we saw each other at gatherings; it took about a year for us to really warm up to each other. We were acquaintances with quiet electricity, a peculiar and intriguing friction. The slow burn of fascination always hung in the air when one of us entered the room.
Our friendship really kicked off after he got home from living in Australia. At the time I was deep in my yoga teaching career, so he started coming to my classes and workshops. We would listen to Estas Tonne in my car and then go to community breath work together. We cooked countless meals and he introduced me to alternative wellness tricks like ice baths and intermittent fasting. One time we drank mushroom tea while I was house sitting (never hire me for house sitting lol.) We stayed up all night sitting in an empty bathtub, giggling, watching dawn’s early paint strokes on the horizon. Around that time people started asking me who he was to me, and I always laughed and shrugged.
“That’s Christian! He’s like my best friend.”
I could write a BOOK on the slow burn “friends to lovers” trope that ensued in the time in between. It definitely had its due amount of miscommunication, jealousy, and longing (like all good love stories do.)
But let’s just say that in the winter of 2019, after years of curling our toes over the edge and peering into the depths of what could be, we took a good long look at each other, and decided to take the leap.
The rest is history :)
Our engagement story leads us to June 27th, 2023.
If you’ve made it this far you know that I run my own business, and that Christian is soon to launch his holistic wellness practice for men.
He had been talking about booking a branding photoshoot for months, and I was in deep support of this. You gotta have good branding bb!
I recommended he reach out to our friend Sunnie Heers to book a shoot, and he got a date locked down with her pretty fast. As it was his first branding shoot and he wasn’t well practiced in the process, he asked me to come along and help direct. A few weeks before the shoot, he suggested I stand in for some photos myself, and that I should wear something cute.
Obliging, I got gussied up, popped a benadryl to combat my timely pollen allergies, and we got into the car. Quietly, we made out way north, winding through the backroads of Black Hawk into Nederland. We stopped and got iced coffees at the Train Car; the coffee was bad, but the ritual of getting it was sweet. Christian winked at me as I stirred almond milk into mine.
It was a hot afternoon in Estes Park when we met Sunnie. She climbed into the back of our car and we zoomed up to the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park. Christian had been up a few months earlier, and fallen in love with a lake he thought would be a good backdrop for his photos.
After parking the car, we embarked on a short but breathless hike up into the dense forest. Along the way, we encountered vast stretches of ice and glimpses of dappled light filtering through the treetops. Mind you, I was clad in a crop top and sandals which drew a fair share of judgmental glances from passersby. I shrugged it off.
Conversation was light, sweet, and quick. In retrospect, it was obvious Sunnie and Christian were focused on just getting to the lake :)
Upon reaching our destination we snapped a few photos, but Sunnie turned around once, declared the lake too crowded, and kept us marching another mile up the trail to a different lake. Christian eagerly followed suit, and I trailed behind, slightly perplexed as I hadn't found the first lake to be overcrowded at all.
By this point, we found ourselves trudging through large patches of snow, mud, and glacial melt. I, still sporting my crop top and sandals, was managing to outpace fully outfitted men equipped with Patagonia gear and walking sticks. Needless to say, the judgmental glances waned.
When we finally ascended to the higher lake, we were immediately rewarded with sparkling blue water and brilliant high peaks. There were just a handful of hikers who had made the same trek. The obvious photo op was a boulder at the edge of the lake. Sunnie suggested we pose for a few couples photos before getting pictures of Christian, to capture the last inches of light before the sun dipped behind the mountains.
Sunnie is a wedding and elopement photog by trade, so she has all sorts of photo op tricks for couples up her sleeve. She directed us to stand back to back, and on the count of 3 turn around and jump in each other’s arms. So I did as I was told, standing back to back with Christian, with Sunnie holding her camera in preparation 20 feet away.
She counted down, and as I turned, I knew exactly what was coming for me. Of course after reading this story I’m sure you’re like, “Morgan!! How could you not have known!?!” But LET ME TELL YOU that Christian was so calm and cool and collected that whole day! And I expected him to be losing his shit if he had this big of an operation planned.
Did it cross my mind at least once that day? OF COURSE. But did I ever imagine that Christian would be so chill, AND be able to pull off what was actually months of planning and coordinating with Sunnie? I stand corrected.
When I turned around, there he was. On one knee against the water. To be honest I blacked out for most of what he said, and he’s had to remind me a few times in the week since. (I’ve asked my other engaged friends, and apparently blacking out is common!)
And of course, I said YES. The few hikers around us clapped and I started to land back in my body. Sunnie laughed in relief, grateful that she didn’t have to keep in such a big secret anymore!
The afternoon wove into celebration of sweetness, disbelief, and the stickiness of warm champagne. Turns out it never intended to be branding shoot at all, and my willingness to be helpful had played beautifully into their plan.
As dusk fell we made our way out of the park and onto the winding road back to Estes. We reveled in holding such a sweet secret, one that we knew we’d have to release eventually. But in those last moments of daylight, we giggled in the knowledge of what had just occurred, and held it like a glowing treasure.
Prior to this moment, I had never been totally sure about marriage, or how that would look for me. Not having the strongest examples of it growing up, I was admittedly skeptical. But something about seeing your person asking YOU what you want to do quiets all those fears. This proposal taught me that I’m allowed to do this any way I want.
We celebrated with beers and fried pickles at Oskar Blues. And in those balmy, final rays of light in Lyons, it felt like the sun was setting just for us.
