Tucked in a quiet pocket of cypress swamp off Highway 61, the log cabin his great-grandfather built has served as a place of respite for generations of Ian Pourciau’s family. Here, in the stillness that has rooted his family to the area, Ian and Ginny Greene arrived for what seemed like a quick stop on their way to a typical day of lunch and shopping in St. Francisville.

Ian and Ginny are both Baton Rouge natives who have long known of one another through mutual friends. But it wasn’t until a few years after Ian moved away to attend the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, that the two began their long-distance relationship.

When he came to town in November for Thanksgiving break, his invitation to spend the day eating, shopping and enjoying the scenery of St. Francisville was nothing out of the ordinary. “We just love escaping out of Baton Rouge for little day trips,” Ginny says. “We do New Year’s Eve at The Mallory every year, and it’s just been a special little getaway spot for us in our dating relationship.”

As they pulled into his family’s Thompson Creek property, under the guise of retrieving an item from the deer stand for his brother, Ian asked Ginny to walk with him.

“I said, ‘Oh, I’m good. I’ll stay in the car,’” she recalls. “I was all dressed up, and I didn’t want to get dirty before lunch.” After a bit more pleading, she agreed. Unbeknownst to her, this was their main stop of the day, and Ian’s sisters were outfitted in camouflage, with walkie-talkies and cameras, hiding among the towering cypress trees, waiting to capture a life-changing moment.

When he got on one knee, the serenity of the swamp came alive with the fluttering of birds’ wings, rustling of brush and Ginny’s excited squeals. “I was so shocked, I was screaming and squealing, and literally fell to my knees,” she recalls.

As Ian’s sisters emerged from their hiding spots, they snapped a few photos. Then, they quietly reset the scene for the two of them. His family packed up, set out a blanket and left, telling them to take some time to process everything.

Sitting together on that picnic blanket, just the two of them, is Ginny’s favorite memory of the whole day. Ian brought the scrapbooks Ginny had made for their anniversaries, and they sat, flipping through the pages and reminiscing on the memories they held. For a moment, there was no move to plan and no wedding to coordinate, only the quiet realization of the new horizon.

“It just was the most tangible moment in my life where I can truly say I did not have one distraction or distracting thought in my head, because it was just us, and we were just looking at each other and realizing that we get to spend the rest of our lives together,” Ginny says.