Lauren Reynolds found a baker for her wedding cake, picked out a dress, a DJ for entertainment and had plenty of decorations ready to go for her special day.

Most of all, her heart was full.

“I just felt happy, I felt peace,” the Federal Way resident said. “Everything was just going in the right direction.”

But it all came crashing down one day in October 2014, a month before her wedding, when Reynolds had a strange feeling about her fiancé Tristin Woods.

“I was at a family activity and I hadn’t heard from him that morning yet, which was weird,” Reynolds said. “Then I got a text from his mom, asking if I had heard from him and I started to worry.”

Woods was in California, where he had family and had lived off and on.

Trying to figure out what was going on, Reynolds started calling around and got a hold of his aunt.

“When she called me, she said, ‘I’m sorry honey, but Tristin died in a car accident during the night,'” she said. “I just fell to the ground and started screaming. I just lost control.”

Reynolds said she was overcome with darkness on the worst day of her life.

Woods was a passenger in a vehicle that had an intoxicated driver, who wrecked after driving 110 mph on the freeway. Woods, strangely, was the only one who wasn’t wearing his seat belt and the only one who died.

“The hardest part about that is Tristin never ever got into a car and didn’t put his seat belt on, so it just didn’t make any sense,” she said. “His grandfather had died in a car accident and he was so cautious about that, so it’s just the weirdest thing.”

That was just about a year ago. Reynolds would have celebrated her first year anniversary with Woods on Nov. 8, the wedding date they had planned.

Instead, on the one-year anniversary of Woods’s death, Reynolds’s friends had an idea that would later provide a small amount of closure: A photo shoot of Reynolds in her wedding dress as a memorial to her fiancé.

“It was such a fun girls weekend and it just felt, just being in my wedding dress made me feel so beautiful and we were walking around this park in Seattle and this man took his hat off and bowed as we walked by,” Reynolds recalled. “It was happy and it felt good and that was a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time.”

Good friend Stephanie Jarstad, a Federal Way photographer, took the photos while other friends helped with make-up and hair.

“I was honored and humbled to photograph such a sweet tribute,” Jarstad said. “With only a few short weeks before Lauren’s wedding day, you could imagine the excited anticipation any bride feels. Losing her sweet fiancé couldn’t have been further from her mind. My heart completely broke for Lauren, at a time when they should have been starting their lives together she was saying her goodbyes. This photo shoot was held for Lauren to express her love for Tristin and the goodbye they never had.”

Reynolds said she felt close to Woods that day.

Although short, their love story was deep.

Reynolds, a Decatur High School graduate, met Woods through his father, who attends her church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Federal Way.

Reynolds said she fell in love with him within a week of knowing him, but the first time they connected was at a church Christmas potluck.

“None of my family was going, the only reason I went is because I knew he’d be there,” she said.

Reynolds said she was surprised when Woods asked her if she wanted dessert. Later that night, she eventually gave him her phone number.

“When we said goodbye, he gave me a hug and as I was walking away to my car, he said ‘hey, wait’ and told me that I’m the most beautiful girl that he had seen,” Reynolds said.

Smitten, the couple was engaged by July 11, 2014 with a proposal on a pier that held a view of a lighthouse and The Queen Mary, a ship docked off the California coast.

Reynolds said she gave the pain of losing Woods over to God each day and believes that His plan isn’t for her to be lonely forever.

“I can’t picture myself loving anybody else,” she said. “But I know that, just from how much Tristin loves me, he wouldn’t want me to be alone for the rest of my life.”

To view the memorial photo shoot and accompanying video, visit www.stephaniejarstad.com/blog.