In honor of Valentine’s Day next week, this week is Love Week! Glamour and Grace is dedicating a whole week to engagement shoots and love stories!
Love Week is starting off with the love story of Jared & Kiersten. Diana Rush captured them beautifully in this stunning beach engagement shoot!
Jared and I were first introduced by my cousin and his best friend, who were dating at the time. I lived in Huntington Beach, California and he in Gig Harbor, Washington, but I spent a lot of time in Gig Harbor because I have family there. We began hanging out quite a bit that summer when I was in Gig Harbor and we texted and talked on the phone constantly when I wasn’t (Jared once had a phone bill that was over 400 dollars in the beginnings of our relationship and my parents deemed 9pm “Jared o’clock” because that was when our phone date started most nights). At the end of the summer we shared our first kiss. Jared is the first and only boy I have ever kissed and I am his first and only as well. A few days later he took me to a Mariners game where he asked me to be his girlfriend. I still have the ticket from that game. We were 15 and 16.
We continued to date throughout the rest of high school, visiting each other whenever possible for school dances, spring break, and even three-day weekends. When it came time for Jared to choose where he would attend college we made the decision together because we knew we wanted to spend our college years together after three years of long distance. Jared went to Washington State University, and I followed a year later.
Last August, the day after Jared returned home form Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia, the day before we were to return to school for our senior year and two days before our five year anniversary, Jared told me that he had a surprise for me. He took me to the Melting Pot in Tacoma, where I had been begging him to take me ever since we ate there together with our parents. After dinner, we drove to this little park that extended into the harbor in Gig Harbor. We walked down to end of it and as the sun was setting over Mt Rainier, Jared got down on one knee, presented me with a ring set with the diamond my grandmother bought for me before she died, and asked me to marry him.
