We met at Chalktoberfest in Marietta. One of Amber’s friends started talking to Jake’s group. A little bit into the conversation her friend asked if they had any single friends in the group and Jake’s future sister in law said, “Yes! Jake!!”. We talked for a while and realized we had so many things in common. We both had dogs named Dixie who were a month apart in age. We also both went to Colorado State (Go Rams!).

Finally at the end of the day Jake worked up the courage to ask for Amber’s number. He had thought that my teaching friend and her boyfriend were my parents and so he was extra nervous to ask in front of my “dad”.

Later that day Amber had a previously scheduled date so she had to leave. She kept pushing the date time back because she really liked Jake. She didn’t want to be rude and cancel on someone so she eventually went. Immediately she realized that Jake was the one for her and ended the date early.

From the time we started dating every game we went to or watched together our teams won. The Braves won the World Series, the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup, and Georgia won two national championships.

Jake’s point of view:

October 12 2021 is the day my life changed forever, in the best possible way. I was walking around downtown Marietta with some friends for a beer/ chalk art festival, and the next thing I know I am being called over to meet another group of people. The first thing I was asked was if I was single, and that’s when I met Amber. I was nervous to say anything at first, but before she left I got her number. From then on out we were inseparable. We started talking about life together, and timelines of when that would happen. She always told me she wanted to be married in two years, while I said it would be more like three. This is when I started my plan.
​I had to make the proposal happen in two years, but my biggest thing was it needed to be a surprise so I kept on saying I might propose after our third anniversary. There were a couple hurdles to get over to make this happen. The first thing was buying a ring. Since Amber was a teacher, she left the house and got home before I did, so I had to take some time off in the middle of the day to not arouse suspicion. This worked perfectly. Second thing was asking her dad for her hand in marriage. This proved to be a bit more difficult, as her family lives out of state. When visiting them for Christmas, however, there was a small amount of time to ask while I was helping her dad in their barn. I just jumped right into the question without any prior conversation since I was nervous. Her dad handled it well and was somewhat expecting the question to come soon. I don’t think he expected me to have the ring on that trip, but I wanted to ask Amber in front of her family at Colorado State, the school we both went to. At this school they have a massive oval quad where it is said that if you walk around the whole thing with your person, yall will be together forever. After walking around the oval, I had to prevent Amber from rushing to the car since it was so cold out, so I asked for a picture. When we were posing for it, I got down on one knee, shaking like a leaf from the nervousness, and proceeded to ask for her to be my everything forever. She was stunned and first said, “Are you joking??” then I proceeded to tell her absolutely and, “I’m assuming this is a yes?” The rest is history.
​Throughout the years of being with Amber, I have been happier than I’ve ever been in my entire life. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me. From the beginning she was beautiful, kind, smart, and funny. Now she is still all of that and more. She even puts up with my idiocy from time to time. I couldn’t ask for a more perfect wife. I love you Amber.

Amber’s point of view:

Jake was coming home with me for his first Colorado Christmas. Since we both had went to CSU we had been planning on visiting Fort Collins for a while. My top priority while we were there was to go to a restaurant called Spoons. It’s my all time favorite restaurant in Fort Collins and I found out a while after Jake and I started dating that it was his favorite too. We even have the same order!

I had also really wanted to take Jake to New Belgium since it’s his favorite brewery. When we were planning our trip a few months before Jake had mentioned how we should visit the campus and walk around The Oval. There’s a tradition to walk around it with the person you love and you’ll stay together forever.

The fact that this would lead to a proposal went completely over my head at the time. Jake had done a really good job making me think that it wouldn’t be happening for at least another year.

Anyway we get to Colorado and head up to Fort Collins with my parents. Of course the first thing we do is go to Spoons, then we walk around campus showing each other our freshman dorms and favorite spots.

We finally get to The Oval. I noticed that my parents walked behind us a ways for some reason but didn’t really think anything of it. My job during my freshman year was in The Oval so I rambled on about my job most of the way around the circle. I started to notice Jake being really quiet and then he nervously brought up that the curb we were walking over wasn’t ADA compliant. Kind of strange, but I didn’t think anything of it since Jake is kind of strange :) (and in the concrete business).

We get to the end of our walk and Jake said he wanted to get a picture in the middle. My parents came over to take our picture. I noticed Jake was shaking a ton but it was about 20 degrees, so I just thought the guy who never gets cold was actually cold for once. My dad asks if Jake wanted him to record it. Which completely went over my head!

We’re about to get our picture and Jake turns to me and says, “you know I love you with all my hear right?” I’m standing there thinking it’s windy and freezing cold why can’t he tell my this in the car?! That’s when he gets down on his knee and proposes! I’m in complete shock and instead of saying yes I ask if he’s joking! Once the shock wore off I did say yes!