My Favorite Couple Volume 10: Tyler and Kelly

Earlier this Spring, I received an inquiry email from an adorable woman named Kelly. Following my usual process, I scheduled a phone call with her to talk about the potential to design her perfect engagement ring.

Immediately, I loved her and I knew I had to design her engagement ring. I could tell she was so in love with her man, Tyler, and this was going to be a super fun project for me. She said she would talk to him and leave the rest up to us because she wanted to be surprised.

I love surprises so I was totally excited when Tyler reached out to me a few months later. It was easy for me to see why this couple was so in love with each other!

Watch the video below to experience how adorable the engagement of this wedding photographer and musician was..(and I got a plug too)

Don’t you just LOVE them? Read more below to find out about their history as a couple and about their process of helping me design Kelly’s perfect ring!

I don’t usually write these interview style, however their answers were so perfect that I couldn’t help myself.

1. How/When did you meet?

Kelly: Tyler and I met through a mutual friend from church who made it his personal mission to match-make us. But since that was right before we went our separate ways for the school year, we didn’t start dating right away.

When I was away at school, we continued getting to know each other (as friends ) thanks to the miracle of Skype,sending each other birthday presents in the mail, etc…

It wasn’t until a little after moved back to California that things shifted. I found myself being nervous around him, and wearing new outfits and perfume anytime I knew I would see him. As a girl… you know what this means 😉

That fall, we made it official, and spent the first nine months of our relationship doing the long-distance thing, at which time we were thankful for our extensive Skype history..that year, we fell in love, had lots of adventures together, celebrated Tyler’s graduation, and then (thank God) he moved back home to be closer to me. He eventually followed me from our hometown in the suburbs into the heart of San Francisco, and the rest is history..

2. When was the moment that you knew you were meant for each other?

Kelly: Ever since we started dating, I’ve never not known it was him. I’ve always felt so much confidence and peace about it. We get along so well and have so much fun together. And although we go on so many fun adventures and dates, I feel the most loved and in love when we’re doing the mundane things together- shopping for roceries, cooking together, watching a movie in our PJs -just living life. When I realized that, I realized that I always wanted him by my side, and I never looked back.

Tyler: I knew very early that Kelly was different than any girl I’d ever met. She is profoundly and wonderfully her self. She is funny..and not like “aww, that’s cute” funny.. like “I can’t believe you just said that! I think I just peed a little”.. kinda funny..

My family loved her, my friends loved her, I loved her, she loved me, she loved God, she loved life, she loved love and the saw the goodness of humanity in the every day..what else could I possibly want in a friend and love? Though I didn’t pop the question ’til almost three years into our relationship, I was sold pretty early on.

3. What is the greatest adventure you have taken as a couple?

Kelly: Because of our jobs, we’ve been to a half dozen or so states together. We’ve been ice skating in central park, we’ve toured the Washington Monuments, we’ve paddle-boarded in a Tennessee lake but my favorite adventures with Tyler are when we’re exploring the city we live in, San Francisco.

4. What was your reason or desire to go with custom engagement ring?

Kelly: As a wedding photographer, I’ve seen A LOT of rings. All the rings I’ve been able to photograph have been so beautiful and have fit my brides so well! It’s the best..

But when looking at some of the more common styles, I didn’t feel like I had found a ring that was totally “me”. So I’ve felt for a while that I wanted to go the custom-ring-route; there is just something so special about knowing that no one else has this exact model except for me, but more importantly, that this is the EXACT ring that my man wanted to put on my finger and that he picked every detail to match what he thought I would love. (And he was right. I’M OBSESSED).

I found Tracy on a wedding blog- all I saw was a thumbnail image of just one of her designs and I KNEW she was the one. Her work is beautiful—each design is so special and one of a kind. What I saw in her work that set her apart are the intricacies that she works into each ring…But what I loved most about her site was seeing the video where she talks about how she tries to get to know her couple and by learning about their personality and style, it influences the piece she creates with them. I told Tyler that I wanted to stay out of the creating a ring process but that I found the perfect designer—Tracy Matthews. They took it from there, and like I said, I couldn’t be more in love with the final product!

5. What was your experience like working with me?

Tyler: I’ll answer this one. Honestly? Amazing start to finish. Tracy wanted to know about me and Kelly..our relationship, our interests and hobbies..and Kelly’s personal style. She took all that information, and let it influence the style of the ring we were creating. She was honest, flexible, realistic, and hard-working to stretch my budget as far as she could..and in the end, I couldn’t be happier with how the ring turned out. It’s the best gift I’ve ever been able to give anyone, and I owe so much of that to Tracy.

6. Tell me a little about your wedding. How are you infusing your own unique taste into the experience?

Kelly: I told my friend last week that we were looking for a venue that looks like my ring: ethereal, natural and unique. We still have a lot of details up in the air, but the venue we are looking at is just like my ring – it feels special and magical and everything we are looking for. Beyond the venue, we just wanted the day to feel like “us”..so that means a party with our best friends in a relaxing place with good food, lots of laughing, as long of a celebration as we can squeeze out of the day, and our favorite bluegrass band to make sure everyone knows that we mean business when it comes to this celebration.

***

I am sooo happy for the chance to work with these two amazing people! If you want to learn more about them you can visit Kelly Boitano’s website and Tyler Madsen’s website.

Tell me how much you love this couple too!

If you liked their story please write a comment below! If you think your friends will like it too, share the love and send out a tweet.

[Tweet “Check out this great engagement video… it will make you smile!”]