Samantha and Benjamin | Columbia, Missouri Engagement Session

We joined Samantha and Ben for the most lovely fall engagement session in Columbia!  The colors were showing out the day of the session with vibrant shades of rich fall colors filling the backdrops of their portraits!  The temperatures were perfect and the sunny light filtered through the autumn leaves, helping to create some gorgeous imagery.  Samantha and Ben came looking so nice in their first dressy outfit of the evening!  We knew these two would be a breeze to photograph within the first five minutes of the session!  They are both so laid back and easy going and took to our direction well.  By the end of our time with Samantha and Ben, they looked as though they were professionals.  We love how much fun they had with the session.  Their giddiness and energy around one another is cute as can be and we had a blast documenting it!

How They Met

Samantha and Ben found each other thanks to God’s timing and the Bumble dating app.  Bumble works by giving the woman control as they are the only ones who can see the matches and the ball is in their court to make the first move.  Samantha messaged Ben on December 14, 2018 with a super slick “Hi there!”.  It worked because he messaged her right back.  The two messaged on the app for a couple of days and then switched to texting each other.  Thus began a month of messaging before they would actually interact in person. Ben waited until they were both back in Columbia (and until he worked up the nerve) before he asked Samantha out on a date.  Once he did finally ask, her response was, “I thought you’d never ask :)”.

1-17-19: their first date was delayed by a massive snow storm…believe it or not Columbia, Missouri got 16+ inches of snow in one storm! So, five days later Samantha and Ben decided to officially meet at Pancheros.  Sam was nervous and excited as she waited in her car for Ben to arrive.  Her first thought when seeing him was “wow, he looks better in person”.  She wasn’t  sure if it was the lights or the purple shirt Ben was wearing but she remembers thinking, wow, his eyes are really blue!  All Samantha wanted to do was keep eye contact with him – which is saying something because she is naturally shy and often avoids eye contact.  The two were easily able to hold a conversation and Samantha loved hearing Ben talk about his family.  She left the date feeling excited for the next one. Ben was NERVOUS for the first date.  When he pulled into the parking lot, he saw Sam sitting in her car, took one last deep breath, then got out to greet her.  Ben remembers thinking that Sam’s smile was super cute (still true) and spent the night trying to combine learning as much as he could about Sam and not letting the nerves get the best of him.  Sam was the smart one and ordered a bowl, while Ben sat there struggling to eat his burrito…to the point had had to start using a fork (real smooth). As Ben hugged Sam goodbye and got back in his car, he exhaled – the same way he began the date. This time, instead of nerves boiling over, it as an overriding thought of, “that was fun, and he couldn’t wait to get to know more about that girl!”

Samantha and Ben began dating in February of that year and quickly knew they had found “the one!”  Samantha would say it is a combination of moments drawn together that solidified Ben as the person she wanted to do life with.  One moment that sticks out happened as they were driving from NH to NJ – after having spent time with Samantha’s family and on the way to meet his family.  Samantha was driving, they had been in the car for over five hours. Ben had just talked her through the wicked nuts toll as they entered NJ where there were 8 thousand booths and absolutely no lane markers!  Samantha was definitely agitated from the stress of that…then Ben made some comments about her “aggressive” driving (yes – she was indeed driving a tad aggressively).  They stopped at a gas station to switch drivers. Samantha was a little heated as she walked in to use the restroom, to the point she actually shooed away Ben’s hand as he tried to reach for hers. When she came back out, Ben backtracked, but only a little. He didn’t let Samantha’s emotions deter him from speaking truth to her while also recognizing that her emotions were okay to have. The moment that Ben started to envision a future with Sam was when she was dog-sitting. She invited Ben over to make dinner, drink some wine, and watch movies. As they stood there moving around each other in the kitchen making dinner with dogs laying at their feet, Ben thought to his self “yeah, this seems like a future I would enjoy mightily”. From then on, every little thing they did together and moment they shared served to solidify that viewpoint!

How He Asked

Hampton, TN | March 2020:  It was 50 and raining but Samantha and Ben were determined to do some hiking. Since fog/clouds/lack of visibility was a concern, they decided that hiking a mountain for a view wasn’t a good idea so they instead opted to see some waterfalls. Waterfall #1 = Coon Den Falls – It was the smaller one so they hit that one first. Finding the trail head was a struggle but they managed!  Samantha and Ben embarked on a hike up the mountain to see the waterfall on a one person-wide trail with snow on the ground.  They took some pictures at the top and shared a kiss or two . Ben then hugged Samantha but kept a hand in his pocket and Sam was internally like ‘what are you doing???’ (She figured it out soon enough).

Ben said that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Samantha. Then he got down on a knee and asked ‘Will you marry me?’.  Sam responded with a YES (of course)!!! On the way down from the falls, Samantha told Ben she wanted to reply ‘I thought you’d never ask’ – which is what she said when he asked her out on their first date – but she was just too excited so YES was all that came out!  Then Ben told her there was so much more he wanted to say while down on a knee but he was also too excited. The reason Ben kept pushing Sam up the mountain every time she stopped was because if she took one more break, he was going to propose before they even made it to the falls.  Little did Sam know, on the way up the mountain, after Ben grabbed the ring box out of his backpack, he felt the ring rattling around in it. He panicked and pulled the box out of his pocket to fix the ring, desperately hoping Sam did not turn around. Thankfully, she didn’t or he would have dropped to a knee right there.

Sam and Ben are an adorable pair and it’s clear they share something very special!  We cannot wait to have these two back in front of our cameras on their wedding day when they officially become husband and wife surrounded by their closest family and friends.  Enjoy some of our favorites from the session!