Bree entered my Giveaway for beach engagement pictures. I’m not even going to try and put their love story into words- I’ll let her do the talking!
Bree’s Giveaway Entry:
So I actually met my now beautiful fiancé back in 2014, but back then we were actually college basketball RIVALS. We played each other in the championship game and each year after that our teams rivalry was HIGH.
We never were anything but friends until a spur of the moment trip for me in 2019. I was a volunteer coach at my college during a working visa (I’m originally from Australia but came to Hawai’i to play basketball), and decided to go to WA for the teams first road trip. It just so happened that Courtney had a friend also playing in the game I was coaching.
The moment she walked in the gym I don’t think I took my eyes off her (EVEN WHILE SITTING ON THE BENCH COACHING). Little did I know that she also locked on me. She had even leaned over to her friend, pointed to me and joked “that’s going to be my wife one day.” After the game, We awkwardly bumped into each other and exchanged a few words but that was it. The next day she SMOOTHLY, slid in my DMs and low and behold, we have never spent a day without each other since.
Long Distance Relationship
We spent the first few months of our relationship long distance with a few trips in between. Despite all the craziness and whirlwind of emotions, Court came to Oahu and had secretly set up a plan with my best friend to propose. Of course, I said YES! Our next issue was covid (Blegh), but I actually went to Washington and stayed with Court for 2 months while the world quarantined! We planned her big move out to Hawai’i (which funnily enough was a life long dream for her) and on May 4th, 2020 we finally did it! We sold her house, sold everything in it and moved with our dog & cat to my place here!
Our next craziness was my visa. It was set to expire in July so we had to get moving! We applied for my green card and waited a whole year to see if it was approved! Court supported me that whole time and worked so hard to make sure we could have everything we have ever dreamed of together.
Elopement
Fast forward to now, we had planned to have a wedding this summer, but due to Australia’s borders being closed (I haven’t seen my family in over 2 years 🙁 ) we are planning to elope soon and plan a ceremony once all our friends and family can make it to the island to celebrate our love! Our plan is to hopefully get some amazing engagement photos because we never got the chance through all the madness & send them out to our people, so this opportunity was so exciting! If we aren’t lucky enough to win, we would definitely still be interested in speaking to you to set up a shoot!
I have no doubt in my mind that the universe was just trying to find a way to bring together what was made for each other!
Love rant over ?
Are you living or traveling to Hawaii soon? I’d love to capture your LGBTQ engagement, elopement, or wedding!
