I met with Emily and Grant in downtown Columbia, Missouri for their engagement session! We were blessed with a gorgeous evening and perfect temperatures. Downtown was buzzing with excitement as Mizzou graduations were in full swing. We strolled around taking in the cityscapes before making our way to the Emily and Grant’s old stomping grounds. We dodged the crowds at the University of Missouri and it looks as if Emily and Grant had the entire campus to themselves!
For our last location, we ventured to Shelter Gardens. Emily and Grant wanted to make sure we visited the location of their engagement! It was here, under a pavilion, that Grant proposed to Emily back in October! It was so fun watching their sweet connection come even more alive as we got to the park.
Their sweet pup, Louie also joined in the fun at Shelter Gardens. He stole the show and was the most handsome little guy! Louie enjoyed a little walk and all the cuddles and pets from his mom and dad! The park has a strict closing time, so we worked quickly and efficiently to take in the beautiful golden glow that was streaming through the tree-line. Emily and Grant made my job so easy! Their connection is undeniable and I loved documenting these two! I’m looking forward to photographing them again on the wedding day!
How They Met
Emily and Grant first met through mutual friends at a summer study for their church back in 2021. Their social circles through church crossed paths several times over the years which led to a few random interactions here and there. Though this is how they met, their personal friendship didn’t really grow until Emily injured her knee and
needed lots of physical therapy. A friendship blossomed here and continued to grow, and after Emily finished PT, they knew a deeper, more intimate connection was on the horizon, and Emily and Grant went for it.
For their first date, they went to church together and then headed to Meriwether Cafe for brunch in Rocheport, Missouri. Being huge sports fans, Emily and Grant would connect even more over time. They love traveling to games and have a bucket list item to hit a game at all of the MLB stadiums. They even plan to caravan to other NFL stadiums for Chiefs games.
The One
Emily – “I think there were quite a few moments early on when I thought to myself “yep, he’s the one”. But the earliest time I can think of was a random Friday when I made dinner for us then we spent most of the night binge-watching Outer Banks, and we turned the show into a game and started making bets on things that would happen. It doesn’t sound that exciting, but it was one of the most fun nights I’ve had just being with him and being our goofy selves. I can’t explain it but I just knew that if something so simple was so fun just because he was there, and that I immediately missed him when he left, this had to be the real deal.
The second time was when I got back from my birthday trip to Vegas. I walk into my house and there’s a ‘happy birthday’ banner strung across my kitchen doorway, balloons everywhere, a basket of all my favorite things, and post-it notes all over the house. The post-it notes were 26 things that Grant loves about me and they were hidden all over the house like a scavenger hunt. It was the most thoughtful and intentional birthday gift I
had ever received and I had never had a boyfriend do something like that for me before and I just had this feeling it was something that was going to last a lifetime.”
Grant – “Mine sounds right out of a movie, but 10 days after we decided we would try out dating, I made a note in my phone saying I knew that she was the one, and texted my buddy the same thing. I think there was a part of me that knew before I was even ready to act on it. I think there’s a lot of stigma that can come from dating a former patient (rightfully so, in many circumstances), but at the same time, I wasn’t going to pass up on something that felt unlike anything else before. But it was just like skydiving—it was hard to take that initial leap, but once I did, I was simply free-falling in bliss.
Similar to Emily’s story, I don’t think there was one instantaneous moment, but rather understanding that “this” is what it’s supposed to feel like. We had a lot of background friendship and understanding of morals, values, and faith that were built up over the time we spent together preceding dating, so it only took leaping to figure it out so shortly.”
How He Asked
It was the week before Mizzou Homecoming, and for some reason none of Emily’s college friends could make it this year, which she was pretty bummed about. Luckily, her two best friends in town had made dinner reservations for them the Friday night before homecoming. After dinner, they planned to go see house decs in Greek Town. Emily was also bummed that Grant’s supervisor had decided him and all his coworkers at their clinic decided to do a team bonding activity the Friday night before Homecoming, so he was going to have to miss dinner and meet up with them later. She didn’t understand who in their right mind would schedule team bonding on a Friday night, especially on
Homecoming weekend?
Emily’s friends picked her up for dinner that night, and her friend Camille had forgotten her wallet in her car so they needed to go get it. She said there was a wreck on the way to Emily’s house and the road was blocked off so she got stressed out and pulled into a random parking lot and had Mackenzie pick her up (if you know her – this checks out.) So they pulled into the Shelter Gardens parking lot. Mackenzie and Camille start talking about how they’ve never seen Shelter Gardens and they want to walk through it – but Emily was thinking, their dinner reservation was in 10 minutes. Emily was like, “guys can we come back another time? We’re gonna be late or dinner!” They didn’t seem to care and walked into Shelter Gardens anyway. As they are walking, they start coming up on a gazebo and Emily sees a guy in the distance standing in the gazebo. She thinks, “hm that kinda looks like Grant” – then she gets a little closer and realizes it IS Grant!
Then Emily sees rose petals and photos of them all over and the gazebo looked beautiful. It was then that Emily finally realized what was happening! She had no idea it was coming and that made it so perfect – the proposal was so sweet and so thought out, then there was a surprise engagement party at Emily’s parents’ house afterward with all of their closest friends and family. Turns out her friends DID get to come to homecoming weekend, they just couldn’t spoil the surprise 🙂 It was such an amazing weekend!
Grant hopes that one day he can relive it all through a bird’s eye view. He notes that no one talks about how the guy gets the short end of the stick on this one. Grant had it planned long in advance and it took a lot of coordinating, secrecy, and patience. Grant took the day off of work which was a necessary decision, but ultimately a terrible experience because time just crawled. Finally evening time comes around and Grant has his proposal speech down PAT. Fast forward to hastily getting set up because they started to fall behind, Grant sees a car that he thinks is the right one pull into the garden from afar, and immediately every word he had in that speech disappeared and his mind went blank.
For a split second, his brain went to “Forget the rest—just say ‘Will you marry me?’ and the rest of this will suffice.” Thankfully, it was a false alarm, and honestly that was the best thing that could’ve happened because it shook out the nerves. It was like showing up to school without pants on, and then waking up from the dream with your jeans right next to you. It maybe helped that it took Emily the entire length of the garden to realize it was Grant, so he had extra time to practice internally. Grant can’t tell ya
what he said, and he couldn’t tell ya if Emily actually said yes, but they’ve made it this far, so either she said yes, or
they’re in the middle of an absolutely lethal joke.
