Engaged: Brett and Brittany

Nothing says "love" like a very simple gesture. An almost-unnoticed action; an indication of a profound understanding of the loved one.

When I met Brett and Brittany and led them down a wooded path, I didn't know one little fact that Brett was well aware of: she hates bugs. As I was asking them to sit on the bridge, stand by the tree, walk in the woods, I didn't notice what Brett was doing. But he was doing it. Carefully, thoughtfully, lovingly. At each new location, he watched for spiders and got rid of them -- long before Brittany even noticed the threat, and definitely without their blind photographer noticing his effort.

But when I did - finally! - see how beautifully his love played out in real life, I melted on the inside. A big puddle of mushy gushy sentimentality was dripping from my eyes. Some might call that puddle tears, but I'm not going to. (The semantics don't matter, anyway.) What does matter is that Brett loves Brittany. And not just in a love way, but in a love way. The kind of love that starts in high school and grows from there. The kind of love that makes two people life partners. The kind of love that survives starting a business together. The kind of love that laughs together over an unseen joke. The kind of love that enjoys wearing matching Converse. The kind of love that will take care of the spiders.

Yup, that's love.