Austin and I met on Folly Beach in April of 2016. I was in my final semester of culinary school, and he was getting ready to leave for the Air Force. We only got to know each other for less than 2 months before he left for basic training and then moved to Arizona to serve at Luke Air Force Base. We met through mutual friends who all had a love for going to the beach, playing music, and surfing. Austin and I were both very positive, easy-going people so we instantly bonded. We were always playing guitar together and singing our favorite worship songs. We recorded a lot of those songs together in my voice memos app on my phone. A few days before Austin left for basic training, he admitted that he had feelings for me. I friend zoned him hard and made him feel like he was the only one with feelings. He was about to move across the country! What was I supposed to say?! I still drove to Columbia with our friends the next day to see him off.

A few days after he left, I called his mom so I could find out where to mail my letter while he was in basic. I wrote him a novel, basically pouring my heart out. He never wrote me back…. We spoke maybe once over the next 8 years, and I posted one photo of us on Instagram in 2018 telling him he needed to move back to Charleston. Austin left the Air Force, sold his house, and moved back to Charleston in April of 2024.

I was trying to sell two extra tickets to The Postal Service show at Credit One because my friend thought it would be a good idea to buy a new set of tickets in a better location the day before the concert. I was then scrambling trying to find someone to buy our original tickets so we could make our money back. I sent a message to my group chat with all my friends about the tickets and Austin’s brother responded saying he would take both of them. We ended up running into each other right before the concert started and briefly caught up. Within the first minute of talking, Austin told me that he found his way back to God and was living a completely different life now. We went out after the concert and talked for hours. He told his brother later that night that he thought he might have feelings for me. His brother’s response was “why not?”.

We started texting every day and sending each other our favorite worship songs. It got to be so much that Austin started a Spotify playlist. He went to church with me that Sunday and then we went to the beach with our friends and did exactly what we used to do back in 2016. Austin remembered getting turned down all those years ago, so he wasn’t going to express his feelings for me. He thought we were just friends and that I was just being nice to him. I knew that I needed to make my feelings known so I invited Austin to sit under the West Ashley bridge with me and watch a thunderstorm one night. That night was a turning point for both of us. We sat for hours and caught up on the last 8 years of our lives. We proceeded to spend every single day together for the next couple of months. Most of those days were spent at the beach, reading our bibles, playing guitar, or surfing with friends. We found the old recordings of us singing worship songs together and Austin pulled out the letter that I wrote him when he was in basic. He had kept my letter after all these years. I knew within a couple of weeks that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. We hadn’t even kissed yet. I’d never felt so sure of anything in my entire life.

Austin was planning on proposing while we were hiking a trail in Sedona, AZ the day before new year's, 2024. He got really sick while we were on that trail and ended up in the emergency room, so the proposal didn’t happen. Fast forward 5 months later, he surprised me with a picnic on Folly Beach by the lighthouse. He had his parents write “Will you marry me?” in the sand before we got there. They were so nervous that they wrote the question mark backwards (which was really funny). His parents hid in the trees filming the entire thing. I knew the moment we walked up to those words in the sand that they were intended for me. I was speechless. Literally speechless. Austin kept trying to make jokes about how those words were probably for another couple and we just stumbled on their spot. He knew based on the look on my face and my lack of responses that I wasn’t hearing anything that was coming out of his mouth. So, he dropped down on one knee, pulled the ring out, and asked me to marry him. Of course, I said yes! And I’m not making this next part up; the dolphins went wild. It felt like a fairy tale. We sat on the beach for the rest of the night enjoying the sunset and dolphins.

We just closed on our first house together in Charleston and we could not be more excited!