Groom stops midway through vows to hand bride a scribbled note — it contained a promise

Childhood sweethearts finding their way back to each other after decades apart sounds like something out of a fairytale, but sometimes, real life has plans even more poetic. That seemed to be the case for Lauren and Brooks, who went their separate ways in February 2015. But during a flight to Oklahoma, Brooks felt a shift—he realized that Lauren was truly the love of his life and decided he was going to marry her.

And marry her he did. Recently, to mark their third wedding anniversary, Lauren shared a touching clip from their wedding ceremony on her Instagram page. In the video, Brooks tells her about the moment on that flight when he wrote a heartfelt love confession, acknowledging how much she meant to him. The video was taken during a beautifully orchestrated day that included a bachelorette party, a rehearsal dinner, and a garden pizza party, all leading up to the church ceremony where they exchanged vows. In her blog, Lauren shares that in that moment, surrounded by loved ones and the church’s priest, Brooks recalled how that flight had changed everything for him.

“So there I was, sitting at the airport, upset, fighting tears,” he said on the microphone. “But despite our current situation, I knew we would be together. Sitting there in that moment, on my plane ticket I wrote, I’m going to marry that woman.” The groom then slipped out the old ticket from his coat’s pocket and handed it to Lauren. The priest looked at the ticket and read the note for the guests, “On the ticket, it says, I am going to marry that woman with a little smiley face. There’s a little heart too.” Continuing his speech, Brooks said, “A few years, countless memories later, here we are.”

Calling her childhood sweetheart and husband “the most thoughtful human,” Lauren wrote in the post, “It’s the love in my life that keeps me going.” The video has been viewed by more than 9.7 million people ever since it was shared. “The kind of man every woman deserves,” @fabulousjudy_ commented on the wholesome clip, while @tmcconnell74 said, “I still believe in love because of you nice people sharing your stories.” Reflecting on the couple’s story, @realmeyure added, “When you genuinely want to work things with another person, you literally move mountains, aka you would literally do anything to be with that person.”

In the blog post, Lauren described that she and Brooks organized their wedding in the Southern California area where most of their guests lived. They opted for a sustainable wedding, to minimize the waste that is typically generated during weddings. They also skipped the traditional “save the date” invites and chose vintage postcards with QR codes printed on them for the guests. “A wedding is a time to publicly declare how much you love your partner, invite your beloved community into that experience, eat your favorite foods, drink your favorite drinks, dance your butt off, and have a blast,” Lauren wrote, describing how the couple marked everything off their checklist.