That Time We Took Engagement Photos at a Queer Yoga Retreat in Mexico

I’m Caro, and I wanted to share a little slice of our love story — a story that’s rooted in yoga, shaped by long-distance years, and recently celebrated with the most joy-filled engagement photoshoot during a women’s retreat in Mexico.

How Did Our Queer Love Story Begin with Yoga?

Seven years ago, I met Teresa at a yoga studio in Houston, Texas. I was a new teacher, and T was about to begin her yoga teacher training. From the very beginning, there was this unspoken connection. We became fast friends and spent nearly a year pretending we weren’t madly in love. In 2018, we finally admitted it out loud and started dating.

Since then, our relationship has taken on many forms. We dated long distance while I finished undergrad at Columbia. We lived together in Pennsylvania while T completed her PhD in counseling psychology. And we followed each other across cities and coasts: Houston, New York City, Philadelphia, D.C.… eventually landing in Berkeley, California — where we live now in the hills, close to my family.

Where Did We Get Engaged (Twice!)?

We’ve always done things in our own way, so it’s fitting that there were two proposals. I proposed first — during Philadelphia Pride weekend, on the beach in Asbury Park, NJ (aka the gay Jersey Shore, obviously). We had a beach picnic, stayed at a queer-owned boutique hotel, and ended the night at a Fletcher and GFlip concert at the Stone Pony. It was pure queer joy.

T proposed back a few weeks later. Our rings were made by our friends at Vice Versa Jewelry in Brooklyn — a queer-owned biz we love.

After all that magic, we packed up and moved across the country to the Bay Area. T is now a post-doc psychologist at Cal, working in the trans care unit, and we’re settling into this new chapter of life together.

Why Were Our Yoga Retreat Engagement Photos So Special?

We’re both deeply connected to yoga — it’s literally how we met, but it’s also how we find our way back to each other when life gets tough. I’ve been a yoga teacher and impact-driven leader for the last eight years, and when I came out in 2016, yoga helped me find myself.

This year, we were feeling heavy about everything going on politically and really wanted to be outside the U.S. during the presidential inauguration. So we did something we’d been dreaming about: we planned a women’s yoga, meditation, and sound healing retreat in Todos Santos, Mexico. We priced it at cost to reduce barriers and invited the queer women in our lives to join us.

It ended up being this wildly beautiful, healing, joy-filled weekend — movement, breathwork, journaling, connection. Most of the women who came were queer. It just made sense that this would be the space where we took our engagement photos. Our friend Becky Harris (a retreat participant, queer photographer, and general legend) took the photos, with help from her girlfriend Leigh. The timing lined up with my 28th birthday, too. It was all just… right.

With love,

Caro (and T — but I’m the one writing this 💛)