JD, a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, and avid outdoorsmen, proposed to his girlfriend Alex, a middle school teacher, while riding a gondola up a snowy mountain at Snowbasin Ski Resort in Utah. He even thought to tie a string around the ring so it wouldn’t accidentally fall off into the snow below.

They met years earlier as freshmen at Penn State University in Calculus class. Alex always had her eye on him. After class, both of them would hang out with their individual group of friends at the HUB to study. Eventually, Alex got up the courage to ask JD to join her, just the two of them. Finally, JD got the hint that Alex was interested in him, and they began hanging out more often. It wasn’t until JD brought Alex home to meet his folks and introduced her as his girlfriend, when she knew she was officially his.

After graduating from Penn State, JD began a Ph.D. program in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and Alex began teaching middle school math at Perkiomen Valley School District in Pennsylvania. For four years, they have had a long distance relationship and have made the most of it by visiting each other during the holidays and summer vacations. When it came time to choose a location for their engagement session, they both agreed that it had to be on the mountains in Utah, a place that has given them many adventures and a milestone for their relationship.  And so they flew me out to Salt Lake City. We woke up before the sunrise to hike Bell Canyon to a scenic reservoir. I could tell they were both in their element, and I love to see couples truly being themselves together. We then met again later that evening in Park City, Utah, where the Sundance Film Festival takes place each year, for a few more portraits.

These Penn Staters will be getting married next year at Penn State’s Mount Nittany Club in Beaver Stadium.

Congratulations Alex and JD!