Known to celebrate “silly milestones,” Meghan didn’t think anything of it when, one night over a dinner he’d made, Marco handed her a card commemorating their 19-month anniversary. “I told him how much he means to me and how happy he makes me,” she says. “When I finished, he said, ‘Well, you pretty much said everything I’m feeling. Meghan, will you please be my wife?’” Meghan isn’t certain what followed, but, “I just know there was a lot of hugging, kissing and crying,” she says.

Lots of locations throughout southern Wisconsin could have been the setting for Meghan and Marco’s wintry engagement shoot. He grew up in New Berlin and Brookfield. They met on a spur-of-the-moment pub crawl in Madison. Oconomowoc is the town they now call home. But Meghan’s hometown, Spring Green—“one of the last few untouched, natural-beauty landscapes”—won out. So, before the shoot, their photographers scoured the area for “the spot” and fell hard for Spring Green Nature Preserve.

Though the to-be-weds were clearly the stars of their outdoor shoot, a prop certainly stands out, as well. “I have a vintage chaise lounge that I inherited from my grandmother,” explains Meghan. “My wonderful now-husband and the husband half of our photographer team hauled this thing up the hill, in sub-zero weather, over at least one foot of snow, into the nature preserve. It was so worth it.”

The couple chose Spring Green for their wedding locale, too, and enjoyed a day surrounded by loved ones. “Our wedding was small, very simple…very us,” says Meghan. “The best advice anyone gave us was to be present and live each moment of the day. We really took this to heart, and I am pleased to report that I drank up every moment of my wedding day, and know that Marco did as well.”

Photographs: Artist Group Photography