Our story actually starts about 10 years ago. I was finishing my undergraduate degree and was on Christmas break when I came to Ohio with my family to visit for the holidays. Jared was driving truck and building his life in Ohio, and I was pursuing my dream to become an occupational therapist in Virginia. We first encountered one another at a NYE party at his dad’s garage where Jared told my family he knew I was “the one” and I would one day be his wife.

Fast forward to the summer of 2019, where I returned to Ohio to complete a clinical rotation at Marietta Memorial Hospital. Jared had stopped to visit my grandmother at her home, where he then asked if I’d like to go out on an ATV ride with him. Hesitant, but agreeable, I tagged along and spent the entire evening with him. Jared and I ended up having great conversations, laughs and more things in common than we expected. Following that summer, the next several months we went on to live our lives in different states.

We joke today that had it not been for Jared telling my family that night in the garage that he had every hope of marrying me, or for showing up to my grandmother's house that one summer afternoon, that we wouldn't be together.

From that point forward it was clear that we had something special, and it didn't matter if we lived 8 hours away. We made trips to visit each other every weekend and we decided that we'd continue to make trips even though we were hundreds of miles apart. So, for a year we traveled to one another for visits while we slowly made plans for our future life together.

In June of 2020, I moved to Ohio where we moved into a beautiful farmhouse Jared remodeled for us, and we started the next exciting chapter of our lives with one another.

In January of 2024, Jared got down on his knee in our home on NYE surrounded by our close family and asked if I would marry him! After lots of cheering, and "FINALLYS" I of course said yes, and Jared put my dream wedding ring on my hand.