They only lived a few minutes apart, but it took a trip for Europe for them to meet.
Stephanie and Hayden are both from the San Francisco area. They went to the same high school. They sang in the same choir. But Hayden’s a few years older, so they never sang together. Then, one summer, their high school decided to do a European alumni reunion tour. In Paris. The City of Lights. The City of Love. And in Rome, The Eternal City.
As fate would have it, they were on the same tour bus. They were literally a world from home, and just seats apart on a bus. They sang together at iconic locations, like The Cathedral-Notre Dame and The Sistine Chapel. Their parents were there, too. They became best friends on the trip and started plotting how to reunite Stephanie and Hayden again. Stateside. Being from Northern California’s wine country, they had the perfect plan: a family wine tasting in Napa –– and it worked.
Stephanie and Hayden exchanged numbers and started texting back and forth. They dated long distance for four years while she attended the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!). He had graduated from UCLA and was working full time. They saw each other whenever they could. They never lost touch. They never lost hope that, one day, they’d be together again.
When Stephanie graduated, they both moved to Dallas, but it didn’t take Hayden long to plan a trip back to Napa. For a special occasion. Stephanie thought it was a trip for someone else in the family, so she was totally surprised when he got down on one knee, at the vineyard where they had their first date, and said the four words she’d been waiting to hear, “Will you marry me?” To her added surprise, they weren’t the only ones there. Their parents, still best friends, were watching in the distance. A picture perfect ending to a fairytale love story.
Stephanie and Hayden, we loved your engagement session! We loved every minute of having you two in front of our cameras, and it just made us even more excited for your Four Seasons Scottsdale wedding this winter with Kayla from Some Like It Classic. It’ll be a dream team for a dream couple, and an amazing way to end the year! Here are just a few of our favorite photos from our time together. We hope you love them as much as we do!
