For Stephanie Matthews, it was love at first date.

“I knew right away I was going to marry him,” says the Orem bride of her now-hubby Dane Thomas. “I called my mom and told her he was the one.”

And when you know, you know.

So after three months of dating, the pair spent their happiest moment in the happiest place on earth.

“We got engaged at Disneyland,” Stephanie says. “But he tricked me! When we were walking out of Club 33 restaurant, the waiter came out and said I forgot something. I thought it was my inhaler, but when I turned around, there was Dane on his knee with a ring.”

With a July 1 wedding date, the next step was planning, planning, planning.

First up? A gorgeous gown — with no cookie cutters in sight.

“I found a Monique Lhuillier dress I loved with a Queen Anne neckline and lace, so I took that raw idea to dressmaker Shawna Schauers who made me a beautiful dress that was all my own,” Stephanie says. “It was so perfect and unique. She ended up using more than 30 yards of fabric!”

With the help of her photographer, McKenzie Deakins, Stephanie planned the rest of her wedding with ease — which led to a perfectly perfect day.

“We got sealed early in the morning, and it was absolutely my favorite part of the day,” Stephanie says. “I’m a convert (to the LDS Church), so my parents weren’t able to attend the ceremony. But coming out of the temple and giving my parents the biggest hug was a moment I’ll never forget.”

So first came love, then came marriage, and then comes … well, you know the rest!

“Our pregnancy was a surprise, to say the least,” Stephanie says. “But we couldn’t be happier about it.”

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Heather Eagleston always planned on having a year-long engagement.

But that was before she met Tyler Beus.

Heather dated the Woodland Hills-raised boy for eight months, and they were planning on getting married a year later in June 2010. But then Tyler had a job opportunity with the military come up in Iraq (he’d already been deployed there twice), and they thought, “What are we waiting for?”

So the month-long engagement began! But first, they had to get engaged. (Details, details.)

“We had our engagement pictures scheduled, and I still had no ring!” Heather says. “Tyler kept saying it would be OK — that we could just Photoshop the ring in later. But I was upset because I felt stupid having my engagements taken without an official proposal.”

Little did Heather know, Tyler had a proposal — and a plan. On the day of their engagement photos, he sent her to a salon where she could get a facial, massage, and hair and makeup done. Afterward, she rushed off to meet Tyler at a local park where they were interested in having their reception. When they got there, Tyler, who Heather says was “acting strangely” (Future brides: This is code for “he’s about to propose!”), walked up to a woman and asked her if she would take the couple’s picture.

“I was so embarrassed. We don’t take pictures. Plus, I wasn’t engaged yet, and now Tyler was bothering this lady to take a picture of us for no reason!”

But before the woman captured the memory on film, she asked Heather to hold her brand new puppy. Heather obliged, and when she looked at the collar, the tag said, “Heather, will you marry me?”

“I said, ‘You jerk! You tricked me!’ But Tyler said this was our love puppy, and it would take care of me while he was gone to Iraq for the next year.”

And they called it puppy love.

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It was the spring of 2008, and Heather Barker had her hands full. Not only did she have a boyfriend, she was writing an LDS missionary.

But then came Dan Yeates.

“We were living in Raintree Apartments in Provo when we met,” says the Elk Ridge bride. “My mom’s maiden name is Yates, and so that got us talking.”

After a summer of flirts from afar, the pair dated for a month or two and then broke up. Heather then dated the missionary she’d been writing (who’d since come home), and Dan did some dating of his own.

But then came the cheddar cheese waffles.

“We had been keeping in touch by text here and there, and he always said he was going to make cheddar cheese waffles for me. My birthday is on New Year’s, so he came over that day — and the rest is history.”

The rest is, in fact, a delicious history. When it came time to propose, Dan, who hails from Orem, put things into overdrive.

“It was the last day of my finals during the spring semester, and I came out to find a bouquet on top of my car,” Heather says. “There was a note. On one side it said, ‘Heather Barker.’ And when I unfolded it, it said, ‘Yeates.’”

Still not 100 percent sure he was proposing (thanks to the stress from her chemistry final), Heather met up with Dan and they went for a drive up Provo Canyon. After dinner at Sundance, Dan got down on one knee to propose to his sweetheart — but not before tripping (adorably so) in the process.

Talk about head over heals.

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Megan Brockbank and Derek Welling know what it means to “meet cute.”’

A year after the pair had crushes from afar (Megan had a boyfriend when they first met), Derek showed up to her apartment door with a plate of homemade brownies in hand. (Yes, homemade.)

“He needed an excuse to ask me out,” says Megan, a Spanish Fork native. “But it wasn’t the brownies that won me over. It was his cute smile.”

That memorable grin took Megan to a lunch date at Guru’s, and it’s what Megan affectionately likes to call their “last first date.”

Naturally, the “meet cute” led to a cute engagement. Wanting her to remember the “little things” that brought them together, Derek was ready with small surprises for the big moment. First, they returned to the scene of their love story’s beginning and ate lunch at Guru’s. And later, Derek offered her a brownie once again — and again and again.

“I told him I didn’t want one, so he asked me again, and I told him I was sure I didn’t want one,” Megan recalls. “And he said, ‘I think you do.’”

So Megan suspiciously obliged. She lifted the top brownie, only to find a hidden engagement ring amidst the pile of homemade chocolate confections.

“He held the ring in his hand, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him,” Megan says. “It was a wish come true.”

Vendor list

Dress
Latter-Day Bride

Bridals
Taken At
Thanksgiving Point

Flowers
White Willow

Rings
Payne Diamonds

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When David Larsen first met Orem’s Ashleigh Smith, he wasn’t about to let her get away.

“He stepped on my foot, and he wouldn’t get off,” Ashleigh laughs. “I think he thought it was a chair.”

The chance encounter was unforgettable, but in this “boy meets girl” scenario, David (ironically) didn’t have a leg to stand on.

“He was cute, but he was two years younger than I am,” she says. “And I thought, ‘No way.’”

Two years later, Ashleigh and David serendipitously reunited in an LDS ward. And when David asked her out, Ashleigh found herself saying, “Yes way.”

“I absolutely fell in love with him,” she says. “And away it went.”

The whirlwind romance led to a whirlwind engagement. Ashleigh flew to California to visit David, who was working there for the summer, and the weekend was full of one surprise after another — romantic dinners, “Wicked” tickets, a Dodgers game and finally, a beautiful, dreamy boat waiting for her on the docks of Newport Beach. “I knew in that instant he was going to propose,” Ashleigh says. “There were flowers, music and ‘fake bubbly.’ It was a perfect moment.”

That perfect moment led to perfect planning. Ashleigh and her mom, Gloria, tag-teamed the wedding details. “My mom and I were buds during the whole thing. We had the most fun imaginable,” Ashleigh says. “I was never stressed. It was pure enjoyment.”

And her wedding day — despite waking up at 4:30 a.m. — carried that same gleeful feel.

“It was the most peaceful, perfect day,” she says. “I didn’t want it to end.”

Vendor list

DRESS
Bridal Expressions

CATERING
Culinary Crafts

RINGS
Goldsmith Jewelers

BRIDALS
TAKEN AT
Thanksgiving Point and the Salt Flats

VIDEOGRAPHER
David Perry Films

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Before she became the “little Mrs.,” Provo’s Jessica Reichman was the “little sis.” Derek Olthuis — Jessica’s hubby-to-be — was friends with her older brother, but it was only a matter of time before his Reichman allegiances changed.

“He asked my brother if I could cut his hair,” says Jessica, who works as a stylist at Suggestions Salon in Orem. “So I did, and that’s when he casually mentioned going out sometime.”

That casual connection soon led to an inseparable one — but it didn’t last for long. After a few months of dating, Jessica was off to study abroad for three months.

“It was so, so hard,” Jessica remembers. “But it made us realize how much we loved each other. And when I got home, he was waiting at the airport with a rose.”

First came the rose — then came the ring, the giddiness and the planning. Although for Jessica, the planning was as easy as “I do.”

“I was never stressed,” Jessica says. “And it was all because of my wedding planner. If she needed an opinion, she’d call. But she just kept telling me, ‘You’re the bride. Go get a pedicure.’” So Jessica was fancy free with fancy feet — all she had to worry about was her absent groom.

“Derek was in Chile for three weeks before the wedding doing some professional skiing,” Jessica says. “And I remember saying goodbye to him at the airport and pleading, ‘Please come home alive. Please be in one piece.’”

Of course, Derek did come home in one piece. And six days later, the wedding went off with a magical hitch.

Vendor list

Dress
Alta Moda Bridal

Bridals
Taken At
Thanksgiving Point

Hair
Suggestions Salon

Rehearsal
Dinner
White Willow

Cake
Kneaders

Flowers
M&K Designs

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Brody and Kaylyn Billings are living happily ever after, but Kaylyn isn’t your typical princess. She resembles the strong-willed, determined Belle a little more than the submissive, dreamy Cinderella. She even wore a red winter cape on her wedding day that she says made her feel like Belle. Like the princess, Kaylyn fought for what she wanted and got it. It just took her a little longer than the one-hour wonder.

Kaylyn met Brody in her high school ballroom dance class. He was a senior with a girlfriend, and she was a smitten sophomore. So, she did the most natural thing for an infatuated teenage girl to do — she ignored his girlfriend and asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance.

Several years after they “just clicked,” Brody returned to Utah Valley after serving an LDS mission and found the cute redhead he knew in high school. After six months of four-wheeling in the mountains, awkward post-mission moments and Brody “chasing” Kaylyn (“I had been the one chasing for so many years I had to make him do a little work!”), Brody was ready to pop the question.
He designed the ring himself and was ready to surprise his bride-to-be with a picture-perfect proposal.

But once again, Kaylyn proved to have a mind of her own.

“He didn’t get to surprise me because I found the ring in his pocket. He was really upset about it,” Kaylyn laughs.

Shocker or no shocker, she said yes. Brody and Kaylyn were married six months later in the Manti Utah Temple — a fitting castle for the royal wedding day.

Vendor list

DRESS
Allyse’s Bridal

Flowers
Sweet Briar Cove

Invitations
Ryan Pearson
Photography

BRIDALS
TAKEN AT
Thanksgiving Point

Ring
Losee Jewelers

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