The couple’s love story is recreated 60 years later in a touching engagement photo in Bryce Canyon.

Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah – The love story of Steve and Elva Orton, which began in Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park in the summer of 1959, continues through the centuries, inspiring the beginning six decades later.

Bryce Canyon National Park officials recently shared details of a surprise proposal that took place in the park. But the backstory and the woman’s recreation of a photograph of her grandparents made the engagement all the more touching.

In 1959, Elva first saw Steve when she was looking out the window of a Utah Parks Company bus heading for the summer to Bryce Canyon, one of the many national parks where she worked in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The park’s message details how the girl next to Elva knew Steve, so Elva wished loudly, “I want him to ask me out.”

The date – and their first kiss – came less than a week later: an invitation to a fireside program, according to the report. Soon the young couple found all the romantic spots in Bryce Canyon National Park.

“We could walk right in front of the house to the edge. There was a great place to kiss. So we did it quite often, ”Elva quotes. “What can I say? We were madly in love.”

That summer, the couple knew they wanted to get married, but Steve first went on a church mission to Australia. For the next two summers, Elva worked in the Grand Canyon as a program director and at the post office, saving money for college.

“My future husband and I wrote letters. We dreamed of meeting again here in Bryce in two years,” she shared in an interview on the park’s website.

Finally, after two years, Steve returned, and Elva took the first bus back to the park.

The “gear suppressor” at the wheel of the bus told everyone that she was on her way back to Bryce to meet her lover, and “as soon as we got close to the lodge, he started honking and everyone was clapping for me… and he was standing there.” “, Elva recalls.

The couple married on September 22, 1962 in Manti, Utah, traveling and starting a family of their own, but always keeping their memories in Bryce Canyon. After nearly 55 years of marriage, Steve passed away in 2017.

In celebration of their 60th wedding anniversary, Elva, joined by many of her children and grandchildren, returned to Bryce Canyon for a weekend in September 2022. The family had dinner at the lodge and toured its luxurious cabins. like a linen cabin, where past employees painted the walls and rafters with signatures.

“To the amazement and tears of everyone present, a 1957 Steve Orton signature was found near the door,” the post reads.

The next morning, Elva’s granddaughter, Paige, also received a surprise.

Paige’s boyfriend, Garrett, drove all night and surprised her with a marriage proposal at dawn along the rim of the canyon, to which she said yes. In memory of their grandparents, the newly engaged couple recreated a photo of Elva and Steve taken at Bryce Point in June 1959.

Elva said their original photo was taken on a Sunday when her parents came to visit and believes her father took the photo because “we didn’t have a camera”.

Steve is facing the camera and Elva is standing with her back, both dressed in their best Sunday attire. In the recreated shot, the young couple posed in exactly the same way, right down to their arms and legs.

Paige told her grandmother, “Growing up, this was the most romantic place in the world for me because of your story.”

This was reported from Cincinnati.