I usually write my blogs but I thought it would be lovely for Alice to tell you her and Jon's love story. they are getting married next April and a couple of weeks ago we went over to Yarrow Valley park and did a little engagement shoot to celebrate.
It was so hard to pick my favourites but here there are a few after their story.
"Jon and I met on a Christian dating site called ‘Salt’. I had been on a lot of bad dates and was at the point of giving up but decided to give it one more try and lower my age limit to widen the dating pool.
The first person to pop up was Jon. I saw his profile and thought it was good that he was musical and close to his family so I swiped right. We matched instantly but I thought that if it was the right thing, Jon would make the first move….which he did. We got talking about the band DC Talk, about his musical aspirations, my musical background and favourite genres. We then started to talk about what we wanted from dating and Jon told me he just
wanted someone to go for coffee with and that rang alarm bells for me. I wanted to get married and have kids and settle down probably quicker than what the average human would. I thought I would scare him off so I wouldn’t have to be the one to stop talking to him, so told him that I wanted to get married and have kids within 2 – 5 years, to which he responded that he wanted the exact same too!
We carried on talking and arranged to meet each other at the War Horse in Buckshaw Village. Before I walked out the door, I was freaking out, thinking about all the bad dates I had been on, and I nearly cancelled! I talked to my parents and we prayed about it and decided that it would be rude to cancel last minute so bit the bullet and went on the date.
We hit it off straight away, never finished a conversation as we had so much to talk about. He asked if I was free that Saturday to meet again, to which I told him I was free earlier that week if he wanted, which he did, and we arranged to see each other again on Wednesday, just two days later. He walked me to my car and opened the door for me which was incredibly sweet and he still does every time we get in the car.
I got home that night and gave my mum the low down on the date. I told her that as I was on the date, I looked at Jon and thought, I could marry him…I had never felt that way about someone before. We spent the next few weeks seeing each other as much as we could. Just 3 weeks after our first date, lockdown was announced and we didn’t see each other in person for about 10 weeks. We spent hours on facetime, speaking to each other every night. It gave us a lot of time to find out a lot about each other.
Lockdown started to lift and we met up again which was weird at first as we were so used to only seeing each other on a screen but it began to become normal again. We went on lots of dates and were inseparable, planning to go on holiday and spend a full week together with my family in South Wales.
We stayed in a field and pitched our little tents next to my parents. The site we stayed on had no facilities except a cold water tap so we probably saw each other in a completely different light that week! I had spent a lot of my childhood holidays down at Saundersfoot, Amroth and Tenby so I took Jon to a lot of places that held special memories for me. When I was a child, my family and I would partake in a Christian Beach Mission which was held on Saundersfoot beach for three weeks each summer. I found out that Jon as a child had also taken part in this beach mission so there was every possibility that we had met and played together as children which was a crazy thought!
I had a feeling that Jon was going to propose that week, but as the days went on, I was losing hope. I texted my sister the night before we left saying that I was clearly wrong and he wasn’t going to ask me. And even if he did, when would he do it? Would he really do it just before a five-hour journey back home together?
Well, that is exactly what he did. I didn’t know it at the time, but Jon had set up his Go Pro just behind the wheel of my parents’ car, to video the whole thing. I went to approach him to take a selfie of us in the field we stayed in, and he started to back away from me. He said there was one last thing he wanted to do on holiday before we left. He got down on one knee. I was shocked and kept saying ‘No, you’re not!’, and he asked me to marry him. Instead of saying yes, I just kept shrieking, ‘Are you serious?!’, and I then shakily said yes and put the most beautiful ring on, that I had ever seen in my life! I turned around to see my parents and brother watching, and I went to show my mum the ring and started to cry and said ‘Mum he wants to marry me!’, over and over again. The rest of that day felt like a bit of a dream, I couldn’t quite believe that it was finally happening but I am so over the moon that it did!"
