Jennifer and Eric Johnston were on one of their last mountain bike rides of the season along Lake Tahoe’s Sawtooth Trail when they stopped to take in the view.

When Eric popped the question on that September 2006 morning, the suspecting bride-to-be was prepared: she had packed her camera. To the couple’s pleasant surprise, another cyclist passed by on the ordinarily empty trail and snapped a photo for them.

The Johnstons picked July 7, 2007, as their wedding date, in part to mark their seven years of dating. They met while attending rival high schools in San Diego County and relocated to Truckee in 2005.

“We really moved up here to have fun, to snowboard, to try something new,” says Jennifer, a nursing student whose husband works in the public safety department at Northstar-at-Tahoe Resort.

Since their move brought them closer to the site of Eric’s proposal, Jennifer says it was important to marry in Lake Tahoe. Because of the popularity of 7/7/07 nuptials, they settled on a morning wedding at the Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course.

“I always imagined the party going on all night,” says Jennifer. And it did. At least half the guests joined the bride and groom that night for dinner and dancing aboard the M.S. Dixie II.