It wasn’t chemistry but a physics class that brought Kristina Stanich and Adam Stephens together nearly 12 years ago. One day, at the end of class, Adam—dashing in his Army uniform—asked her out for coffee. “What girl is going to say no to a man in uniform and Starbucks?” Kristina asks. The spontaneous coffee date led to three years of dating. Adam was then deployed to Afghanistan, bringing their relationship to an end for the time being.

During their time apart over the next six years, Kristina became a physical therapist, and Adam had been deployed twice and went to flight school to become a helicopter pilot. After Kristina’s best friend passed away, Adam reached out over Facebook to send his condolences. It was like their time together hadn’t stopped. “He was always Mr. Right—we just had to wait for the right time,” Kristina says.

Just eight months after reconnecting, Adam called Kristina to ask if she would come to Fort Hood for the weekend to see him—he was scheduled for deployment to Iraq the following month. Once there, the couple decided to spend the weekend in Austin. Adam snuck away the next morning to call her father to ask for her hand in marriage and to pick up a ring—the prospective groom had reserved similar rings all over Texas because he didn’t know when or where he would be on leave.

By the time the couple reached the Zilker Botanical Garden, Adam began to act unsettled. Kristina was walking a few steps ahead of him when he said, “You know I want to marry you when I get back, right?” She turned around to see he was down on one knee, ring in hand.

Kristina fell in love with the Magnolia Plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, for the couple’s intimate wedding with close family and friends. They chose neutral colors with pops of gold, light pink, and dusty blue to flow with the venue’s natural beauty and ambiance. As a daddy’s girl and a former softball player, Kristina and her dad surprised the guests by turning their traditional first dance into a game of catch.

That wasn’t the only highlight on the dance floor: Kristina and her new husband blew guests away with their first-dance choreography. Dinner and dancing were set on the wrap-around porch of the veranda where everyone two-stepped the night away to Garth Brooks.