It wasn’t exactly “popping the question.” It was more of a conversation.

But it got the job done.

Carla Wensky, Tribune graphic designer and prize-winning photographer, and her longtime partner, Ben Horton, were on a road trip through northern Montana this summer when Ben observed, “You know, I’ve been thinking about asking you to marry me.”

As Carla tells the story now, she mistakenly believed he was referencing when the couple first got together 15 years ago, and she said so: “I know, that was dumb.”

Ben quickly brought the subject to present day.

“No, recently,” he stressed. “I just don’t like introducing you as my girlfriend any more. We’re more than that.”

Bingo. The light bulb came on.

The couple picked out a ring the week before Christmas.

“I made him officially ask,” Carla smiled. “I said, ‘yes.’”

Carla and Ben were formally introduced through a mutual friend at a barbecue in Casper, although they actually had met during high school.

“He was from Cody then, and we had some of the same friends, but really I just knew who he was. We never ‘hung out.’”

At the time of their formal meeting, Ben was living in Buffalo. They dated for three years before he decided to move to Powell and combine households.

“Our first date was a hike in the Big Horns,” she recalled. “We got lost and wandered for hours trying to find our way back to the trailhead. He took that in stride, kept a calm head in a situation when I was starting to panic, and I knew then he was one of the good ones.”

The couple has talked about getting married several times during their 15 years together, but it never moved beyond talk.

“We got busy and went on with life. For whatever reason, it stuck this time,” Carla said.

“I feel like we’ve been through so much of life’s challenges together, and so many of life’s joys, and have remained committed to each other through it all. We’ve built a life together already, but I think this step now feels right. It’s the right time for us,” she said.

They are eyeing Feb. 22, 2022, as a wedding date, but haven’t planned beyond that.

“Most likely we will just have a JP elopement and take a trip later in the year,” Carla said. “Maybe even a marriage by Elvis in Las Vegas.”

“We want something simple and small. I’ve shot [photographed] so many beautiful weddings and celebrations, but that just isn’t us,” she affirmed.

Ben is the public works director for the Town of Deaver. He has two adult children, Austin and Brandon, whom Carla is proud to say she has watched grow into “such nice young men.”

Carla has played a key role in the Powell Tribune graphics department for 21 years. She hasn’t decided if she will change her name in marriage. She is leaning toward keeping Wensky and the familiar photo credit line of: Tribune photo by Carla Wensky.