Ozarks engagement session after a meet cute in the operating room

Amanda and Jessica met in an operating room at the Ohio State University Medical Center. Amanda had just started her neurosurgical residency, and Jessica was working in the same department. The couple started training together and quickly fell in love.

Six months after they started dating, Jessica proposed to Amanda at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium during a fundraising event.

“We were riding the Safari Stampede,” Jessica says, “and because she’s such a whirlwind of positive energy in my life, I thought it the perfect opportunity to ask her if she wanted to spend forever with me on the crazy ride we call life. The ride operator was in on it, and asked Amanda over the loud speaker while the ride was in motion.”

When the ride stopped, Jessica was standing there with a ring. Amanda said yes, but she also asked Jessica to get down on one knee.

“The issue with that is not that I don’t love her enough to get down on bended knee,” Jessica says, “but that I couldn’t get back up because of an extensive knee injury from my ten years in the Army. And because I couldn’t get back up, she met me there, on the metal platform of a ride at the zoo, to kiss me. She still helps me up to this day and it is a moment we cherish and still laugh about all the time.”

Together, the couple is raising two children that Jessica brought into the relationship.

“I love sharing a life with Amanda,” she says, “because everything we do is together. It’s something I’ve never had with a partner before. She brings peace to my world after so many years of hardship and I will be forever grateful for that.”

The couple celebrated their engagement with a photo session at Lake Leatherwood Park in Arkansas.