Treye and I met back in our early college days. We both took classes at Hawkeye Community College (photography for me, and I'm honestly not remembering what he studied!). We had some mutual friends, so out paths crossed pretty often at local concerts, old school neon dance parties, and over lunch on HCC campus. Eventually, I transferred to Iowa State and we lost touch, aside from the occasional Facebook like here and there.
This past weekend (like, two days ago!) I was second-shooting a wedding for Chelsea Dawn when I saw a message from Treye on my phone. I slipped away from the reception party, found a quiet spot and called him. He filled me in that he had plans to propose to his girlfriend, Jenna, the next evening but his photographer had fallen through. I knew this was something that I wanted to make happen, so I rearranged my Sunday evening... and walked in to the West Des Moines Escape Room literally two minutes before he proposed!
If you know Treye, you know he's extremely musically gifted. So, no surprise, he wrote Jenna a song and used that to propose. The Escape Room was full of their family, a piano, fake candles, a bouquet of flowers for Jenna, and the sweetest love. Due to the nature of Escape Rooms, I'm limited on what images I can share from the actual proposal. Let me just say-- it was sweet and full of adrenaline, and lots of happy tears!
We re-created a photo (see following two images) that Treye and Jenna's family took the first time they did an escape room here together! How fun that they're now all officially going to be family!
After more family photos and lots of laughter as the shock slowly started to wear off, Jenna, Treye and I headed outside to take a few celebratory engagement photos! Because there was a storm on its way in to the Des Moines area, we opted to just stay in the Target parking lot and photograph around the perimiter.
The two families had reservations at Bravo, a fancy italian restaurant in the Jordan Creek Mall area. I followed them over just to take a few more family photos. The twinkle lights were so pretty, so I just had to include this last one!
Congrats Jenna and Treye! I'm thrilled beyond all words for the two of you. Let's for real catch up more sometime (when nobody is dazed and in shock, haha!).