Where do I even begin?? There is just SO much I want to say about these two. I suppose I can start with they are not engaged... yet (sorry to disappoint you, friends and family)! These are fabulous friends of ours that were kind enough to donate their time, patience, and pretty faces for a portrait session. 

For those of you not familiar with these two lovely individuals they are Allison and Dolph, although 99% of the people in his life know him as Andrew - his real name. There's dispute as to the exact sequence of events, but essentially Allison was telling us about this cute Navy nuclear engineer dude in her life and upon describing his crew cut dirty blonde hair and blue eyes my husband immediately blurted out, "You're dating Dolph Lundgren??". And thus, the name "Dolph" was born.

To put it simply, they are awesome. However, while both incredibly intelligent with good senses of humor that's about where the obvious commonalities end. Allison is your dessert fork using, Ted Baker wearing, cotillion attended proper lady from northern California. Meanwhile Dolph is your deer hunting, taxidermy hanging, grits loving, good 'ole southern boy from Virginia y'all. 

Over gelato the night before they moved I had them recount their love story. There will be a time for the unabridged version, but for now I'll let you know that it began (as with any love story) at a bar back in the spring of 2008 up in Allison's home town. Between then and present day there were missed connections, MySpace, Facebook, brunch at Fisherman's Wharf, living on opposite sides of the WORLD because of Andrew's deployment, Skyping, Charleston South Carolina, Saratoga Springs, as well as buying a plane ticket to see Andrew without him knowing. In October of 2013 it all ultimately ended up here in San Diego after Dolph completed his duties and said his last goodbyes to the nuclear reactor on the USS John C. Stennis. Finally! After a 2-year deployment and über-long distance relationship they were able to live on the same side of the world, country, and finally the same city. They've been inseparable ever since and Dolph promises to never choose a ship over Allison again, no matter how big the control rods are. (Statement approved by Dolph as "standard navy humor").

At the end of the night I asked them answer a question in regards to the other person. It's a new thing I'm trying where I ask the couple a question or two and record the answers to share on the blog post. I figure it's nice to hear directly from the couple that the post is about rather than just from me. So here is what I asked Allison and Dolph:

What is your favorite thing about your significant other?

Allison: I find it endearing that he is a fountain of useless information. Good for trivia.

Dolph: Her sense of humor which is that of a 12 year-old boy.

And that ladies and gentlemen is the perfect microcosm of who they are as a couple, because not 5 minutes later and without any kind of prompting Dolph says, "Little known fact that Seiko is the first brand to use quartz crystal oscillator for time pieces." So with that, here are Allison and Dolph!