It was December, and after about four months of dating girlfriend Kayla Strominger, Brandon Wessels knew she was the girl he was going to marry.

Brandon, 23, met Kayla, 21, at DeKalb High School when he was a junior and she was a sophomore, but they’d really connected later on. He didn’t want to just get down on a knee in the park or something. He wanted something big and memorable.

The Wessels family farms land south of DeKalb, and he decided that when he popped the question, a bean field would be his canvas.