Jess and Pete chose Perkins Memorial Tower in Stony Point, New York for their September engagement session. After hearing about their engagement story in Sedona at Secret Slide Rock (one of our favorite places on the planet!) we agreed that they needed some mountainous views for their official engagement session.

When Jess reached out and we got on our first video consult, I immediately recognized her! Turns out, we were fellow alums from the same high school (different grades)! It was so awesome to see a familiar face on the other side of the video call. 🙂

How They Met

“Our story is quite literally, my favorite thing to share… We met while working at the same camp during the summer of 2007. When I first laid my eyes on Pete, I remember thinking that he was a total STUD! He was the cool baseball hunk that everyone crushed on. Pete was the reserved and mysterious type, and I most definitely was not! I was a total spaz, loud and somewhat crazy…definitely not as refined or as graceful as I am today (HAHA)! Needless to say, the summer of 2007 is when we met…but the flames didn’t spark much just yet.

A couple of years had passed and (thank god for social media) we reconnected via Facebook – who woulda thought. Facebook messages became texts, which then became calls, and I remember having butterflies every time I saw his name pop up on my phone. We continued to stay in touch over the years; all while work, college, and life kept getting in our way. We’d have casual interactions, but nothing ever quite stuck. We were in two very different places in life. Pete traveled all over the world for work and I had two jobs while also finishing up with college full time. After a long-awaited time apart, Pete had moved back to NJ and was living in Hoboken. It had been TEN YEARS from the summer we met, to the summer we rekindled that flame. This was it; this was our time. The stars had finally aligned and we made our way back to one another. It was like meeting for the first time…all the same, butterflies rushed back! I would be nervous and excited while also feeling a sense of calm on every date. I felt like this is exactly where I’m meant to be.”

How They Asked

“In May of this year, we took a trip to Arizona. This was a trip I had been dying to take for years! I’m type A to the extreme, so I planned out a full-blown itinerary for each day we spent there, along with backup hikes and trails to explore. On our first night in Sedona, Pete casually made a plan to check out the sunset over Cathedral Rock, right before dinner. As we made our way up this trail (me in heels nonetheless!) to the top of the viewpoint, Pete had a blanket and champagne waiting.

This already amazing surprise got even better when he got down on one knee and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him. As if that wasn’t amazing enough, Pete also hired a photographer who captured the entire moment, along with having my family on Zoom so they could watch the proposal live! I balled my eyes out knowing how far he’d gone to making this moment entirely perfect. I still get chills every time I think about it.

Some days, I catch myself reminiscing about the days that we met and how far we’ve come since then. This love is all I’ve ever wanted and it’s all I will ever need. Not to get all sappy, but this love was worth the wait. After 14 (long) years, I am finally getting to marry the most incredible man of my dreams.”