Olson and I actually "met" when both our families attended Triumph Church in Moorhead. Neither of us remember ever talking (you know, the super awkward middle and high school years) but we knew who each other was.

Fast forward about 5 years, we both started attending The Summit Church in West Fargo at almost the same time. I distinctly remember seeing him for the first time on the Worship Team one Sunday and thought, "Hey, I know him!" Olson doesn't remember his first impression of me besides thinking, "oh. I guess Rachel Rosson goes here."

We never actually acknowledged that we knew each other, and for the longest time, I was trying to figure out if I should re-introduce myself to him and joke about knowing him from Triumph to break the ice, but I chickened out. Eventually, we warmed up to each other and became friends when we ended up serving on the same teams at church - young adults ministry and the worship team. I started to realize I thought he was cute pretty quickly, his impressive music ability was definitely attractive to me. Lucky for me, our worship leader, or otherwise proudly self-designated worship team matchmaker, Sawma Fanai, made many attempts to bring us together. But to my dismay, Olson was not interested.

So, I moved on and dated someone else. We became better friends in the meantime. Olson realized he made a huge mistake not asking me out when he had the chance, so he waited patiently until I became single again and made sure he wouldn't take the opportunity for granted. He asked me out on our first date after a worship night that we led with our friends in October 2022.

Rewind back to our first date. I took Rachel to a clearing in the woods called, “Whitetail Hollow” behind my parents house for a small little homemade pumpkin patch. We had supper, carved some pumpkins, and had some great first date conversation. However, I took a backwards, convoluted route to be sure Rachel wouldn’t know where this place was. This way, if I was going to propose to her, I would have a trick up my sleeve and a secret location for a wonderful proposal.

I knew I had to get Rachel dressed up nice, at my parents house, into the woods, and have all her friends there afterwards without her knowing. Rachel, my family and I, went out to a fancier restaurant for supper. We then went back to my parents house for “dessert” and to "watch the Dancing with the Stars premiere". Once we were back, my mom was “making dessert” for us, so we went to check out the forest in the meantime. Thankfully, I had a script for my family for them to talk about certain points during supper, so that when we went to the woods, it would seem normal due to what we talked about. Rachel, my sister Kaelen and I, all went through the normal route to the woods. Kaelen then got a fake phone call and rushed back to the house. We then appeared at the clearing, and Rachel knew exactly where we were. We were in the same spot as our first date, and I proposed. We took it all in, got some pictures, and then went back to the house. All of Rachel's friends were back at the house for a “Surprise Birthday Party”. Most of them guessed what was happening, but it was a fun surprise for all when Rachel's family, friends, and more were there to celebrate.