Nick's Version:

I suppose to know any story, you have to start at the beginning. It was a dark and stormy night when I was brought into the world in the summer of '94. (I don't actually recall the weather, so that may be an embellishment). Then, a short 27 years later I was in love with my beautiful fiance.

I guess that wasn't a detailed enough explanation, so allow some elaboration:

We first met in high school, being introduced by her friend that I was interested in at the time. We remained acquaintances, chatting every now and then and as we wrapped up high school I was better friends with her boyfriend than her! Fast forward nearly a decade through some of life's ups and downs, and Amanda was someone I hadn't thought about much since I left high school, other than seeing the occasional picture on Instagram. I was in the Navy, stationed in San Diego, and of course I saw a picture of hers that I decided to like. She reached out, inquired about my "emerging from the darkness" and we had a nice chat. It seemed like there could be something there, but at the time I was a year away from getting out, we only had one conversation and we didn't talk a ton after that. Then she decided to take a photo (something about a peppermint mocha latte) that I couldn't help but let her know was amazing. She seemed uninterested, so I let it be, thinking we might grab a coffee one day, but not much more than that. Imagine my surprise when that winter she decided to reach back out to me. We started chatting again, and I could not get enough. Eventually, we decided to have our first face time and I was so nervous. It started fine, but little did I know that we would stay up into the wee hours of the morning talking, and that I had found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We kept it up, having face time dates where we'd take turns picking a meal and movie and we'd cook and watch together even though we were thousands of miles apart. Unfortunately, as I was wrapping up my naval career I had to go on one last underway for a significant amount of time. Luckily we had "sailor mail", and I can remember being so anxious to get done with my watch for the day so I could check and see if I had gotten anything new from her. We asked so many questions, and really got to know each other in a way I didn't know was possible without physically being in the same place. Once we got back I asked her to come and visit me during her spring break. Surprisingly she said yes. Even though I hadn't been in the same room as her in nearly a decade, when she got there it felt like my best friend had come to visit. Any worries about awkwardness instantly melted away. (I suppose I can use this to finally admit she did not force me to shave my mustache during this time.) I came back home, glad to finally be with my girlfriend. The time passed crazy fast, and before I knew it, I let her in on the secret that I was in love with her, and luckily she was too. I had found my best friend, my confidant, my comfort, my complete second half, and I wanted to be that for her too. One day I asked her to go ring shopping with me. Before the year was out, we had some awesome 80's sweater pictures of the two of us made, something we had wanted to do for a while at that point. She just didn't know that the last few pictures would be me asking her to spend the rest of our lives together.

Amanda's Version:

Nick and I originally met in high school when I was a junior and he was a sophomore. We were friends but not 'hang out all the time' close...HOWEVER I do recall us hanging out one on one the summer before my senior year. We went to the movies and then to E-City Java afterwards to drink coffee and play chess. Since this was our first one-on-one hang out, I kinda thought it was a date and when nothing came of it I just thought Nick wasn't interested. (He claims to have no recollection of any of this...)

Fast forward about ten years later and it was the summer of 2020. I was home visiting my parents in Anderson and I got on Instagram only to find not one but two 'likes' from Nick on two of my photos. It definitely made me smile because I hadn't talked to Nick since he graduated high school. So, I sent him a message and we caught up a little and left things at the potential of us getting together in person the next time he was home to visit.

A few months later he messaged me again to comment on another one of my pictures, and 'supposedly' I seemed uninterested. (Which was not true!) Nonetheless, our conversation ended after only a few back and forth messages...but about a month later I found him back on my brain! So, I decided to send him a message asking if he would be available to meet up over the holidays so we could catch up some more! He explained that due to Covid the Navy had a lot of restrictions in place so he wasn't going to be coming home, but that he was getting out in April and asked for a rain-check.

After we settled on that rain-check, we continued to chat back and forth for a few days on Instagram until December 23 rolled around and I got a text message from Nick that said "Is this still Amanda Thomas?" to which I replied "Depends...is this still Nick Royals?" And honestly...from that day on we haven't stopped talking. We texted a good bit over the next few days and right after Christmas we decided we would Facetime. I was excited but also so nervous! I hadn't seen his face or heard his voice in years, and I would be lying if the first few minutes weren't awkward for both of us...but then we just kept talking and talking and talking and the next thing I knew we had been video chatting for almost five hours! I just remember getting off the phone with him that night thinking, "Whoa...what. just. happened!?" There was clearly a strong connection and I could have stayed up talking to him forever. We made a plan to have another video chat a few days later but turned it into an official date. We decided to cook together by making the same meal at the same time, rigatoni with vodka sauce! From there, at least once a week we had a 'date' where we would cook together, watch a movie, and talk.

About a month and a half into this routine, Nick told me he was going to have to go underway for a while and he wouldn't be able to text, call, video chat, or message...all he would have access to would be his email and he couldn't guarantee we could email every single day but he promised we would talk as often as possible. Over those next few weeks I clung to my phone hoping to see the words "Sailor Mail" light up in my inbox! Those emails will forever be one of my favorite parts of our story. We would type pages to each other...getting to know each other in all the deepest and best ways! When he finally got back to San Diego, he asked me to come visit him. This was a big moment for him and me. That weekend I went to Atlanta and talked it over with my three best friends and my mom and the consensus was that I would be crazy not to go, and I agreed. So I booked my flight and when the day finally came I was up at 3 AM going to the airport and once I got on my connecting flight in Charlotte and sat down in my seat, I felt completely calm. No sense of nerves or angst, I just could not wait to see him and hug him. In that moment, I knew this was something real.

From that trip on it was just the most beautiful journey of falling in love with Nick. He never ceases to amaze me with his kindness, patience, and love. He is everything that I could ever want in a person and I never thought I would be so lucky to find. In the summer of 2022 he asked me to go ring shopping (I was GIDDY) and so we did that June. We had the absolute best time shopping for my ring and then came the hard part...WAITING. I knew he would want to plan something special and fun, and when our plans came together that December for our 80's inspired photo-shoot I knew he was acting suspicious...but the night before our photo-shoot he killed any suspicion I had and seemed calm as a cucumber. So we got up the next morning to head downtown and I was fully convinced that we were not getting engaged...until we were wrapping up our pictures and the photographer said "How about a picture of the proposal?" And there he was; the man of my dreams, my best friend, my soul mate...down on one knee and asking me to share my life with him. Easiest yes of my life.