Jump ahead to April 16, 2023 & Troian comes across Karlen’s Facebook page, which stated that he was single. Troian ignored it, but for some reason it just never left her mind ;) As Troian & Karlen knew each other through camp & through family friends, Troian thought it would be casual to hit him with a friend request. Roughly a week later, Karlen did the same & followed Troian on Instagram & then again on SnapChat another week later.

Once Troian accepted the SnapChat request, Karlen quickly reached out! After about a week of intentional conversation back-and-forth of sharing family stories & life experiences, Karlen asked Troian for her number, called her up, & asked her to dinner! The very next day, they met in Fargo for a sweet walk in the park & a nice dinner at Jojo’s. It was there that the two knew in their hearts that this relationship wasn’t going to end soon.

On May 22nd, the couple decided to make it official and over the course of the next handful of months Karlen & Troian became each other’s very best friend. Troian quickly fell in love with how kind & how intentional of a man Karlen is & Karlen claims he knew from date #1 that Troian was his forever. Sure enough, he was right ;)

On a cold & crisp fall Sunday in October, Troian was at Bluewater Covenant Bible Camp with 50 of her youth students for a fall retreat at camp.

As the students were packing their things & cleaning the cabins to leave camp & head back to Grand Forks, Troian’s coworker, Jerica Dagen, told her that she needed to go up to the hill at Bluewater because there were some middle school boys messing around up there who weren’t listening. (Karlen had reached out to Jerica & asked her to lure Troian to the hill that Sunday afternoon, where he would be patiently waiting). As lunch was soon, Troian told Jerica that the boys have to come down for lunch or they’d miss it, but she was not about to chase them down. Strike 1 on mission “get Troian on the hill.”

A couple minutes later, Jerica asked Troian if they could go for a quick walk around camp to debrief the weekend & stretch their legs before the long drive back to ND. Troian responded by telling Jerica that they needed to stay present with the students so they could get on the road as soon as possible & that we could debrief when we returned to the church. Strike 2 on mission “get Troian on the hill.”

During lunch, Jerica approached Troian again with the request to go for a walk as a student had shared some heavy information over the weekend & Jerica was looking for assistance in how to respond, but even still Troian responded with saying that we could discuss it in the car. Strike 3 on mission “get Troian on the hill.”

Finally, Jerica asked Troian if she could take a quick picture of her around camp for the Instagram. Troian said yes (SUCCESS!), but was hesitant as Jerica said that she wanted the picture taken in a cute spot on the top of the hill. Troian still followed Jerica with hopes that this would be quick so they could get back to supervising the students. As the two girls walked up the Stairway to Heaven at Bluewater, Jerica shared stories of sweet moments with students from the weekend. As they walked down the path in front of the LookOut, Troian looked forward and asked, “Why are there red flowers just laying on the path?” It was in that moment, Troian realized what was happening. As those words left her mouth, her very best friend stood up from behind some brush & said “Hey babe, you like surprises?” As Jerica was capturing the beautiful moment, Karlen stepped forward expressing how much he loved & cared for Troian, got down on one knee, & asked her to MARRY HIM!! Still in shock, Troian was speechless & so overwhelmed with joy but undoubtedly said YES!! They soaked in the moment as they stood in nearly the exact same place they would one day say “I DO!”

Everything about this day was perfect & we will remember it for the rest of our lives. We are over the moon about what God has done & is currently doing in our lives and we cannot wait to share that with you on August 17th at the place it all began.

- Karlen & Troian🤎