Sophomore year of high school we were in a mutual group of friends. Emma hosted a bonfire at her house that summer and invited everyone! We ended up only talking to each other all night not realizing we liked each other until other friends asked us later how we felt haha! A month of talking later Ben sent a flirty message out of nowhere just before losing signal at summer camp for 2 weeks which was torture for Emma!!

We were at our annual outing at our best friends cabin (he’s the officiant!) and just before sunset Ben coerced Emma to get on the pontoon with a couple friends for an evening fishing cruise around the lake. Emma doesn’t like fishing but she had some drinks so she was just along for the ride haha! The friend who owned the cabin also brought his mom’s nice camera and convinced Emma that Ben had wanted some nice sunset pictures together so it wasn’t suspicious why we were posing. Emma was sat in the back of the boat near the live well poking at the sunfish that were caught earlier while another good friend of ours (he’s a groomsman) was trying to convince Emma to move up by Ben in the front of the Boat before the sunset was over, meanwhile the pontoon was making laps to try and keep a good angle of the sky. Eventually Emma agreed and we took some funny pictures before Ben got down on his knee and popped the question! After Emma squealed that her “nails were done and everything” she remembered to say yes and sobbed like a child that had to put a toy back in the store. On the way back to the dock, our friend suddenly put the brakes on (we’re not entirely sure this was an accident like he says) and almost sent us into the lake making for some more funny photos. All of our friends were waiting on the shore for us to get back and it was really sweet. Emma just can’t get over that Ben let her change out of her cute Barbie-esque romper before getting on the boat!