People often ask how this great love story all began. Well it was the fall of 2016, we found each other on a popular app at the time and agreed to meet in the historic Five Points district of Columbia, South Carolina. It was on the corner of Harden and Devine, right next to the famous chicken-on-a-stick cart where we first laid eyes on each other. I decided that honesty was the best policy and let her know I only had $3 (not even enough for chicken-on-a-stick) in my wallet that I didn’t think would get us very far at the fine establishments around us. We decided to Uber back to my dorm room to watch TV. There was an impressive selection of Dum-Dums in the Uber, I chose the root beer flavor, she chose not to partake (I was taught to never take candy from strangers). We arrived at my dorm, and after we finally figured out the seating arrangement in my twin sized bed lifted 6 feet off the ground, I decided to show her the first episode of my favorite tv show, Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia titled The Gang Gets Racist. It was not well received.

We did not talk much after that day (Blake asked for a second date, I declined), until the Spring of 2018 where I made less of a fool of myself and chose a better episode of Sunny to show her. Eventually, she agreed to be my girlfriend and we haven’t looked back since. That summer we took a trip to DC to visit my family and sightsee. After we survived the death march through DC in the height of the summer heat we went camping at Great Smokey Mountain National Park on the way back. That was where we first said I love you. The near-death experience on our walk to and from Arlington National Cemetery really put life into perspective. Fast forward a few years and she moved in with me in our small house with our two friends. That was where we adopted our first-born child Rhaegar. It was around that time when I bought the engagement ring (Note to men- try not hiding the ring in your underwear drawer if you know she does your laundry), I knew if we could survive the chaos of that house with a cat and my roommate’s dog we could survive anything. After a year we adopted our second child Luna and moved into our own house together shortly after.

After about a year we adopted our third child Ollie (Pumpkin) and have so far managed to stop adding any more animals to our household after that. A few months after that we took a weekend trip to Hilton Head where I finally worked up the courage to propose in May of 2022 (He was sweating profusely at dinner as we sipped on frozen daquiris in a cool air-conditioned restaurant- it was obvious). And now the big day is almost here, we’re both looking forward to you all celebrating with us in Greenville, SC on September 21st.