Josh and I connected virtually a couple of months prior to our first date. Aimlessly swiping through tinder, I stumble across this man in a red flannel sitting in the middle of the woods and I thought to myself, "He looks like a lumberjack this could be fun!"; I didn't imagine that we would actually match. We exchanged a few messages, and then radio silence; I assumed he wasn't interested. Then out of the blue (over a month later!), he gives me his contact info so we could chat outside of Tinder. Little did I know, he was making room in his heart for me. We chatted via SnapChat and initially bonded over our shared love for our pets. Eventually, he asked me out. In typical Amiah fashion, I asked a million and one questions; this biggest being "Where the heck are we going to go in the fall in a pandemic?!" He replied "come over, I'll make you dinner." So on a Friday evening, I shared my location with as many people as possible and told them all the credentials about this "Josh Davis" just in case lol. Although skeptical, I wasn't worried (if you know me, worried is my baseline!) We spent the evening cooking together, laughing and just getting to know one another. Easy, carefree, and comfortable. I had never felt so safe with someone I barely knew. From that day, I knew I needed to learn more about The Lumberjack.

I make sure to make it seem like a normal Sunday, I wake up later than I should have (typical) and we get ready for church and have our normal conversations on our drive. Before we go I make sure to wear something nice and I convince Amiah to put on something nice as well. I may have said some line about taking pictures while we’re out, or just going for a nice walk. As church ends, the photographer texts me and lets me know she is on her way to Harkness Park. I almost blow my cover as I got distracted and Amiah instantly knew I was up to something. To cover my tracks I bring her to one of our favorite Chinese take out places for lunch. I’m still acting weird but the food worked as a great distraction. From there we take another drive to Harkness Park; I make sure to bring up childhood memories of how I used to go to this park all the time. As we begin our stroll, I get the text: “Everything is all set, meet me in 30 minutes”. It’s now time to play our ruse. We go for a short walk to the shoreline, making sure to take plenty of pictures and not walk too fast so we don’t get sweaty. Unknown to Amiah our amazing photographer agreed to impersonate an employee who was “taking pictures for the state website.” I slowly bring Amiah to the garden, which was coincidentally having a wedding at this time, but I knew I could access the garden. Amiah however, was apprehensive to go in the garden as she didn’t want to “ruin someone’s wedding”. After addressing Amiah’s concerns we walk into the garden, and out of the corner of my eye I see our photographer. It’s time. My heart sinks and I get nervous, but Amiah starts taking about all the bees, honestly I don’t remember exactly what she said, I was just making sure I had the ring in the correct pocket. As the “employee” walks up to us, Amiah actually agrees to have her photo taken and we go to set up. Our photographer has never done a surprise proposal but she did a great job making sure we took a few “normal” pictures before the real one… we go back to back and take a few steps apart. On “3” we both were to turn around, little did Amiah know I had the ring ready to propose. Amiah turned around and saw me and was in immediate shock. It took all of my courage and strength to ask “Amiah Jackson-Ward, will you marry me?” No hesitation, no thinking she said yes, and all of the stress was gone, instantly.