Basically we met through our church. Our families actually go aways back, Madeline and her parents have known Brad’s mom Sylvia and his brother Tim and their cousin Daryan since Madeline and her family started going to this church in 2011. Brad wasn’t around here at that time though and so Madeline and her parents never knew him, until in 2021 Madeline and Brad met through a small group we both started to go to at the time. Brad was interested in photography and getting a camera and both Madeline and her mom Ann are into photography. Brad messaged Ann and Madeline about helping him out with getting a camera and so we all started doing photography things together and helping Brad learn. We started talking and getting to know each other and eventually noticed there was some interest maybe and so we went out and sat down and talked and then the rest is history. We started dating in October 2022 and got engaged a year later in October 2023:))

We got engaged on October 16, 2023 on our one year dating anniversary:) We went on a family trip with Madeline’s parents for the weekend to Long Beach WA. One of Madeline and her family’s favorite vacation spots that they gave gone to for years and so is a special place. Brad planned out the whole thing with Madeline’s parents for the proposal. So on the day, we went out and spent some time together in town for our anniversary and looked at shops and went to a little arcade place they have there. While we were out, back at the house we were staying at mom and dad were setting up for the proposal. They set up a little picnic area on the beach, the area had some sticks with fairie lights on them around it and there were some lanterns along a little pathway leading up to it. When you got to it, there was a blanket with photos all around it from our year and in the middle of the blanket was a bouquet of flowers:) then in kind of the corner was a picnic kit Brad got for Madeline for our anniversary. There was music playing and mom and dad were taking pictures and by video. When we got back from our outings in town, we walked down to the beach and there was this all set up. Our playlist was playing in the background. We got blessed with Sunshine coming out at this time and clearing up as it had been stormy earlier in the day. We were supposed to eat and have a little picnic but Madeline wasn’t hungry and so we ended up not eating unfortunately. Madeline didn’t know what was going on ( though I had been hoping) and I started looking through things in the picnic bag and i accidentally saw the ring box hidden in there but Brad grabbed it away quickly haha. Oh there was also in the middle of the blanket a message in a bottle. I opened up the bottle and read the message and then Brad said some more things and then he proposed! And here we are:)))