Dyann + Doug

photo | Sami Kathryn Photography

DYANN + DOUG

Doug and I first met while serving together at our Young Adults Ministry at Watermark Community Church. We started dating on December 12, 2017, and both faithfully continued to pursue the Lord and one another for the next year.

On December 16, 2018, it was a typical day at church where my fiancé and myself sitting with some of our friends. Near the end of church service, he said he had to go to the restroom and would meet me outside. I didn’t think anything of it as I walked out of the church auditorium with my friends and headed to meet with my co-worker and good friend by the Christmas tree in our church lobby area. Our boss had asked if we could prepare for a meeting by printing out some materials. I texted Doug to let him know, and he said he would bring the car around (which at the time, I thought was so sweet because we parked far away!). My coworker and I went up to our office building (we work at the church) and walked into the conference room that we were needing to set up and saw my whole church community group and my roommate there. I was stunned! At first they said it was an intervention (like in How I Met Your Mother), but they laughed and started playing a video that my fiancé prepared for me. In the video he spoke about how this was the day we had been waiting for and how he wanted me to enjoy going to my favourite places with my favourite people. My girls prayed over me, and then we were off!

We went to my apartment first where my roommate read a letter Doug wrote to me. The apartment was filled with tons of memories of us from making pizza to watching movies on the couch to just reading. Next, we went to Blue Sushi for lunch, a restaurant that Doug and I frequent either together or with our friends where we’ve made a ton of good memories and had loads of good conversations and laughs! At lunch, someone read a letter that Doug had prepared for me. Afterwards, we went to Target, where I frequently drag Doug in to look through the $1 section or just window shop. Someone read the last letter that Doug prepared for me and suggested I take some pictures of things I wanted to purchase for our new home. We spent some time there and found some great things. At this point, I was ready to see my soon-to-be fiancé! I was so happy to have spent the entire day with some of my best girl friends and to be able to enjoy this day with them.

They blindfolded me when we got back to the car, and I had no idea where we were going. When we got to where we were going, they guided me out of the car, and all of a sudden, the blindfold was taken off of me where Doug was waiting in front of me. We went on a walk and talked about how our days went (Doug has gotten brunch with his best guy friends!). He stopped me and told me that he loves me – at this point, we hadn’t said “I love you” to one another. We wanted it to be special and wanted to truly exemplify the same way Christ loves us, through sacrifice and grace and forgiveness. I told him I loved him too! He said he wanted me to be his wife, and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I said YES!