I had such a fun time with Micayla and Cody for their recent engagement session in Columbia, Missouri. These two are made the time fly by with their entertaining personalities! We first visited Grindstone Nature Area before heading to Stephens Lake Park. Cody’s goofy demeanor always keeps Micayla on her toes and a smile on her face! I love how spontaneous and fun Micayla and Cody are. When we spotted a random shopping cart at Stephens Lake Park, Cody jumped in and let Micayla push him down the trail. It was one of my favorite moments of the night as Cody’s emotions ranged from excitement to fear all within a few seconds. Micayla and Cody are the perfect pairing, perfectly balancing each other out!
How They Met
Micayla and Cody swiped right on Tinder in October 2019! They messaged back and forth a little on Tinder, then Micayla gave Cody her number and told him to text her if he wanted to go on a date sometime. Cody ended up texting Micayla when she was having a girls weekend in Hermann, drinking a fair share amount of wine and next thing you know, Micayla and Cody had plans to meet the next night.
Thier first “date” was October 23, 2019 and consisted of Cody coming over to Micayla’s apartment after he got off work at 1:00AM. He was in college at the time working at Hy-Vee and Micayla was a night shift nurse, so middle of the night was pretty normal for them both. Micayla was anxious about inviting a stranger to her apartment in the middle of the night and had to continually tell herself he wasn’t going to murder her. Once Cody got there, Micayla felt it was awkward for like 2 seconds and then everything just felt so right. Cody brought precut pillsbury cookies over that Micayla just so happened to burn. Micayla was too distracted by how much she was into Cody. ʹ Jk, she just doesn’t believe in timers. And still doesn’t to this day.
Micayla and Cody sat on the couch and ate the overly done cookies and talked for several hours! Cody had an exam the next day, otherwise Micayla doesn’t think the conversation would have ever ended that night. Cody left and Micayla walked to the car with him. She didn’t get a kiss or even a hug. Micayla instantly texted her best friend, Cassidy, and told her she was alive and didn’t think she would see Cody again. Her friend asked why and Micayla told her she thought they had a connection, but that Cody didn’t even hug her. Cassidy convinced Micayla that Cody was into her and was probably just shy and basically forced her to give him a second date. Cody texted Micayla that day and told her he had a great time and wanted to see her again, so Micayla listened to Cassidy and gave him another date. The rest is history. How He Asked
A lot of stress was endured by Cody and Micayla’s parents leading up to the big proposal moment. In June of 2022, Cody and his mother went to Buchroeders at the recommendation of the Hager’s and talked to Seth about designing the ring he had in mind for Micayla. Cody designed the ring and picked out the center diamond and Seth got it going. Cody had the idea of proposing in Florida while they were there on a vacation with Micayla’s parents. Unfortunately, the ring was not ready in time to have in his possession before heading to Florida. The day after Cody and Micayla got to Fort Meyers, Seth called and said the ring is ready to be picked up. Cody was soooo excited and he wanted the ring in his possession ASAP. They decided to ship it to the hotel, which didn’t even have an office, just the room number for the delivery address. The next day when the ring was supposed to have arrived, they were heading down to the beach and Randy had lost one of the lenses to his glasses at some point heading to the beach. They were looking around for that for a bit where they thought it might have fallen out. Eventually, they gave up and went onto the beach. Cody checked his phone to see if the ring had been delivered. It said it was! He instantly made up the excuse that he was going to go look for the lens with Randy.
They quickly went up to the room and saw that there was no package (it was supposed to be signed for, the driver put Cody’s name on the signature line). Frantically, Cody thought that he could track down the driver and see where his ring was. Cody took the keys of the rental car, that was in Micayla’s name, to “check the car for Randy’s glasses lens” and away they went. P.S. Randy was not too happy with Cody’s driving. Eventually, they went back to the hotel empty handed and head back down to the beach. Cody was sitting there just sick to his stomach that he would make such a poor decision to ship an engagement ring.
Later that day, Cody remembered Mason’s sister Megan, worked at Fedex and might be able to assist him more directly than Fedex’s lovely customer service could. They finally figured it out right before they went to dinner that the ring might have been delivered to the hotel next door to them. Cody called over there and talked to several people who were not helpful in tracking down the ring. Cody asked if Randy and Marjorie could go over there the next morning before Micayla woke up and see if it was there. Turns out, Cody’s package was sitting at the valet parking stand all night and morning. Finally, the ring was in Cody’s possession and somehow Micayla remained clueless. Perfect!
They were in Fort Meyers for a few more days so Cody waited until they did some sort of activity together. Micayla wanted to do a sunset dolphin cruise, so they got it scheduled and he knew he wanted to propose at some point on the cruise. Micayla was picking out her outfit for the night and Cody said, “you should curl your hair.” Micayla refused because she had curled it a few nights prior and the Florida humidity instantly ruined it, so she didn’t want to waste her time. They went to dinner before the cruise and watched a guy at the table next to them propose. Come to find out, they were already married but she never liked her engagement ring so he got her a new one and proposed again. The ring was too big for her. Micayla leaned over to Cody and told him to make sure he gets a ring that actually fits her when he decides to propose. Micayla and Cody went on and finished their dinner.
Cody gave Marjorie the ring to put in her purse before they left for the cruise, and of course, Micayla wanted to get into her purse for something. Marjorie quickly grabbed it and handed Micayla what she wanted out of there. They were on their way to the cruise and Micayla wasn’t feeling great whatsoever. Cody was starting to get a little nervous that this might not be the right time. They left the restaurant and arrived at the dock of the dolphin cruise. It was storming in the distance and Micayla still wasn’t feeling the greatest. She was anxious about the boat because she gets motion sickness. Fortunately, the boat ride was great and Micayla was finally feeling much better by the time they got to the island for shell hunting.
Micayla had a maxi dress on so she tied the dress up in a weird side knot so she could walk along the shore and not get her dress wet. The sunset was beautiful when they first got on the island so she immediately had her mom take a picture of Cody and her with the sunset over the ocean in the background. The time was right, so Cody retrieved the ring from Marjorie’s bag and stuck it in his back pocket. Micayla and Cody then took off walking the shoreline looking for cool shells. Micayla was a few steps in front of Cody when he said, “what do you think of this one?” When Micayla turned around, he was on one knee with a blue ring box with a BEAUTIFUL ring in it. While down on one knee proposing, Micayla was standing there speechless, so Cody told her that he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Micayla instantly started crying and her entire body was shaking. She quickly untied the knot in her dress because she knew it looked ridiculous and her parents were taking videos and pictures. Cody didn’t know that he was supposed to put the ring on Micayla’s finger. Finally, Micayla took the ring from the box and put it on to become Cody’s fiancée! Micayla was amazed that she was totally surprised, she never had a clue that he had a ring and was going to propose on this trip!
