Avery's Perspective:

Ben and I met my freshman year of college, his sophomore year. My roommate and his roommate were friends and hung out quite a bit. Through that, the four of us started hanging out together, playing the Wii, cookout trips, Winslow dinners, snow week shenanigans and whatever else we came up with. We all loved being around each other but I’ll be honest, I did not ever think about dating Ben. (In my defense, he had a girlfriend at the time) the summer after freshman year, we all went home and didn’t really hang out/talk that much, sophomore year we didn’t see each other at all really. It was never intentional; we would always joke that the boys “ghosted” us, but they would disagree. We called them over one time when we needed some massive spiders killed and told them we would make them dinner for coming over. From then on, we hung out like it used to be.

Fast forward, to my junior year, his senior year, Labor Day weekend. His roommate was out of town, and he had nothing to do so he texted in our group chat to see what we were doing that weekend. (Knowing full well, we were all at the lake, and it all makes sense now:) Kelley invited him to her lake house, and he called my roommate and told her he was going to pick her up and go to Kelley’s lake house together because he needed to talk to her about something. All of us met up later that day to hang out and that night he and Allye came to dinner with my family. (Oh, and he doesn’t have a girlfriend anymore, but I am still not thinking about that) From then on, he kept texting me and I finally caught on, along with Allye’s help with her knowledge of his plans.

A couple of weeks later we went on our first date, and continued to hang out almost every day, any chance we could get to see each other. October 13th, we went to his first Preds game. Unfortunately, they lost but after the game he asked me to officially be his girlfriend. I was so excited and knew he was something special. Spending more and more time with him that year, I kept seeing that he had everything I wanted in a man and most importantly someone that would love me and lead me closer to Christ.

We both knew quickly that we wanted to get married. Through many conversations and my endless times of asking when we were going to get engaged, he finally:) proposed on September 8th. And now I can’t wait to spend the forever together as Mr. and Mrs. Austin!

Ben's Perspective:

It all started when my roommate and Avery’s roommate met through an on campus organization and started hanging out. So naturally Avery started coming around my dorm room and we started hanging out in group settings. At this time I was in a relationship but I thought she was really cool.

Fast forward two years to my senior year (Avery’s junior year). It was Labor Day weekend and I was in Murray with nothing to do. I decided to text in a group chat that Avery was in and asked what everyone was doing. Everyone was at the lake, and one of our mutual friends Kelley asked if I wanted to come to her lake house. I jumped at the chance to get out of my dorm, so I headed up to the lake and pick up Allye( Avery’s roommate). When I get there Kelley, Allye, and I head out on a jet ski to meet Avery and some of her friends. We hang out for most of the day and Allye and I end up eating dinner with Avery and some of her family. After dinner I head back home.

The next day I talk to my roommate(Tyler). I tell him that I really like Avery and that I was gonna ask her out. At the same time Avery was getting suspicious that we were texting a lot and she asked my roommate what my plans were. So after Avery talked to my roommate, Avery and I talked and decided that we both liked each other and that we were gonna start hanging out more with the intention of dating.

After about a month of hanging out, I asked her out on October 13th after a Nashville Predators game. Spoiler alert but she said yes, and throughout the next couple months we kept growing and learning about each other. We met each other’s family and kept growing together in our relationship.

We continued to grow together and had many conversations about where our relationship was heading and we both knew that we wanted to get married. I knew that there was no one else that I would rather spend the rest of my life with. Around this time I was about to graduate and move to Nashville to start my job.

After starting my job we had to navigate through doing long distance and the different things that came with this since it was the first time we had to do long distance. We did everything we could to see each other as much as we could and we still got to see each other a lot and continued to grow together.

Then Avery had to start back school and I was still working in Nashville. After a couple weeks of school we decided that Friday, September 8th would be a good day for us to meet in Clarksville and have a date night. Little did Avery know I was planning to propose that day. After we met in Clarksville we went to Liberty Park to walk around before our dinner reservation. As we walked around I lead us to the spot that I was going to propose and I did it. And to everyone’s surprise she actually said yes and the rest is history.