Inspiration Nation: A Love Story That Will Make You Believe in Serendipity

If you don’t believe in serendipity just wait until you read the story of Love and Specs. Not only are Maryal and Chris two of the cutest bloggers out there, but their chance meeting at a Phoenix restaurant is straight from a movie. Read on to hear how Chris tied in their story to the epic proposal and catch the entire desert-set engagement from Ashley Slater in the gallery.

Chris and my love story began one serendipitous Friday in September 2014. My very best friend in the whole world had come to visit me in Phoenix for a much-needed, long-awaited girls’ weekend. There was something so right about that night from the start. I had my best friend by my side, the weather in Phoenix was perfectly warm, and the air buzzed with happy energy.

As soon as we found ourselves lost in conversation, a chambray-clad, bespectacled and insanely handsome Chris walked over to the table, charmingly introduced himself as the restaurant’s general manager, apologized for our wait, and asked if he could get us drinks. After we ordered and Chris walked away, my friend immediately turned to me and said, “Mar, this guy is absolutely perfect for you” and for some reason, I felt so calm. I smiled and simply said, “Yep, that’s the one.”

When Chris came back to the table we all chatted, laughed and introduced ourselves in more detail, and I suddenly got this feeling deep down in my gut that this person would be a really important part of my life, for the rest of my life. And basically, we’ve been inseparable ever since that night.

Almost exactly one year and one month later, on the day I got back from a particularly frenzied and grueling work trip, Chris told me that he was taking me out for a dinner date night. While we were sitting at dinner, Chris kept checking his watch, and I thought it was so weird and a little bit unlike him. As dinner was winding down, Chris mentioned that he had to stop by “the restaurant” – which in our language means the restaurant Chris managed.

While we drove to the restaurant, Chris reminded me that one of the regulars of the restaurant was having their rehearsal dinner on the patio and that he had made sure that the staff pulled out all the stops to make the night really special for them… something he’d mentioned to me a couple of weeks before.

As we walked up to the restaurant, there was a huge trail of rose petals leading from the front door, out and around toward the back patio. We walked in, Chris held my hand and I thought to myself, “wow, they really did pull out all the stops for this couple. How awesome!” What I didn’t realize was that the rose petals were actually leading to the very table where we first met, and before I knew it Chris had turned around, gotten down on one knee and pulled out a ring. I was honestly and truly completely shocked and surprised. I was so tired, so out of it and so surprised that tears just started flowing and I still couldn’t wrap my mind around what was happening! After a few, “What the…” and a lot of ugly crying, I said yes and a huge group of our closest family and friends that Chris had secretly snuck into town without me knowing ran inside from the patio with excitement, and we spent the entire weekend celebrating.

I was honestly and truly completely shocked and surprised. I was so tired, so out of it and so surprised that tears just started flowing and I still couldn’t wrap my mind around what was happening! After a few, “What the…” and a lot of ugly crying, I said yes and a huge group of our closest family and friends that Chris had secretly snuck into town without me knowing ran inside from the patio with excitement, and we spent the entire weekend celebrating.

Over the last year and a half, our life together has been a blur of falling madly in love, late nights spent filling each other in on our deepest fears and wildest dreams, our greatest failures and proudest triumphs, laughing until we cry, scrabble battles, moving in together, backyard BBQs, dancing barefoot in the living room, countless travels and adventures, hiking, biking, cooking, running, yoga dates, trying new restaurants, date nights galore, conquering (and being defeated by) house projects, starting a blog together, meeting (and loving) each other’s friends, getting engaged, merging our families, and now, planning our wedding.

Lately, we’ve found ourselves kind of stopping in our tracks and turning to each other in astonishment that we really found each other and get to spend the rest of our lives together, waking up morning after morning next to each other and filling our lives with endless adventures spent hand in hand. It’s a pretty incredible gift and one that neither of us will ever take for granted.

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About the Engagement Session… When we were looking for a photographer to capture our big day and our love, among a sea of wedding photographers out there, Ashley Slater’s work spoke to us in a big way. Ashley shoots both film and digital, which was something that we really wanted incorporated into our wedding day snaps. Film photography just has such a romantic vibe, doesn’t it? It captures the world in its own totally unique way, and we loved the idea of weaving that into our wedding memories. As a photographer, Ashley has a very distinct, romantic and timeless look to her work, and that fit right in with what we’d been searching for in a wedding photog.

When we had our first phone call with Ashley, we initially thought that we’d have to scrap the whole “engagement pictures” thing because of the distance between us (Ashley lives and works primarily in Michigan, which happens to be where we’re tying this knot this summer!), but luckily Ashley’s one of the coolest, most game photographers we’ve ever met, and she insisted not only on flying all the way out to Arizona to shoot with us before the wedding but that it was going to be one epic sunset session in the desert. How could we say no to that? One other important component of our connection with Ashley was her willingness to strike a match and burn engagement photo tradition to the ground for a minute, and roll with us on the idea of doing something a little bit more fun and funky for our shoot, which really speaks to our sensibilities as a couple. What transpired is what you see in the snaps, which was just as much fun to dream up as it was to shoot. We wish we could have kept that gorgeous ’54 Chevy Belair we rented from Roscoe & Louie here in Phoenix and kept on cruisin’ into the sunset – that paint job is perfection!

When we got out to McDowell Mountain Regional Park in Fountain Hills, Arizona to shoot it was pretty much freezing outside with gale force winds… basically everything you don’t want while you’re shooting your intimate engagement pics, but Ashley trooped on like a total pro, snapped carefully and selectively, and the result is a set of images we’ll cherish for the rest of our lives. You can hardly tell that we were eating our hair for the majority of the shoot!