Ben and I met in the fall of 2019 when he was a senior running my freshman orientation. We both played volleyball in college, and we started gaining more mutual friends. We quickly became good friends my first semester, and Ben eventually asked me out on his birthday at the beginning of my second semester.

After only dating for a few months, COVID hit and we all got sent home. Ben ended up coming home with me to Georgia instead of back to Illinois so he would be able to work during that time. We got to spend a month together before he went back home for the rest of the summer. We didn’t know where our relationship would go from there at this point in time.

Come fall, Ben had moved back down to Greenville for a job, and I was back at school. For the next three years, we had to work hard to be able to spend quality time together with one of us in school and the other out. Two months after I graduated, I moved back up to Greenville, and Ben proposed shortly after that in a garden we had one of our first dates at. We are so excited for our future together, and we cannot wait for you to be a part of our special day!