Our story begins long before October of 2016, when I asked Sarah out on our first date. Ever since I joined some friends at Sarah's grandparent's cabin in the fall of 2015, she had caught my eye. That weekend at the cabin was the first time we got to hang out in a smaller group setting. We had seen each other and interacted at Cru, but hadn't really spent a lot of time together in smaller groups. I remember initially being attracted to Sarah for many different reasons. First off, she was very comfortable being herself, especially around her friends. She was confident and didn't pretend to be anyone she wasn't. Secondly, she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I was drawn to her soft brown eyes, her adorable smile and her contagious laughter. Thirdly, the more time I spent with her, the more I saw how much she truly loved the Lord and how she wanted to live her life for Him. Despite these feelings, I had also convinced myself that this incredible woman was FAR out of my league. As a result, I failed to act on any of these feelings that I was having. Jump forward to the end of Sophomore year, May 2016. Sarah and I had continued to hang out in group settings, but nothing intentional. Sarah was preparing to graduate, and was deciding what to do afterwards. I had heard from one of our mutual friends that she was deciding between either interning with Cru at Clemson, or going overseas with IMB. I remember walking past Martin hall one night after class and thinking to myself, "If Sarah comes back to Clemson, I'll ask her on a date." I had little intention of following through however because I was still convinced that there was no way she would want to date me. I came back to school August 2016 and low and behold, Sarah was back to intern with Cru! The first weekend of the semester a bunch of students and some Cru staff went on a hike to turtle back falls. On that hike I had the chance to have a longer one on one conversation with Sarah about our summers! I was still oblivious to what the Lord was slowly but surely doing in our relationship. Later that semester I was on another hike during Fall Retreat. I was talking with one of my friends, Emily, who has this habit of asking very good questions. She asked me if I "had my eye on anyone" this semester. I gave some non-committal answer about wanting to focus on my relationship with the Lord and running the race towards him. Then she said this very simple phrase that I've remembered to this day. She said, "Well, sometimes you have to look up to see who is running around you," and I was dumbstruck. She was so right! I wasn't going to find anyone if I was just focused on myself the whole time. The next week Emily asked if I would ever consider going on a date with Sarah Howell, and I immediately responded, "yes, of course!" Even to this point I was nervous as to what Sarah thought about me and whether she would agree to go out with me. I then asked Emily, "Are you asking me this because you think Sarah would say 'yes' to a date with me? Or because you think she actually wants to date me?" and Emily replied, "Both!" So finally after many months of interest and a significant amount of help from friends and God, I decided to ask out Sarah to coffee. One night after a flag football game, I tapped Sarah on the shoulder and asked her if she wanted to grab coffee this next week before Cru! She looked surprised but enthusiastically agreed! The rest is history.

My half of the story all started while I was interning with Cru Fall 2016. One of my friends, Jenna, was visiting Clemson and spending the night with me. Like typical girls, we chatted before bed and as we were falling asleep, asked one another about guys we were interested in! I told her that there wasn't anybody I was really crushing on, but definitely intrigued by! She told me to share the name of this person and lo and behold I told her Colin Fair. Surprisingly, Jenna told me that she had been talking to another of our friends, Emily, who had mentioned to her that if Colin was interested in anybody then it would be me. I was SHOCKED, but filled with joy and excitement of what that may mean!

The few weeks leading up to Colin asking me to coffee, my mind was reeling with the possibilities of when/where he was going to ask. At Cru events, friendly hangouts, flag football games and pretty much anytime I saw him, I was very aware of his presence, but had no idea what to say to him (typical Sarah)! He'd always intimidated me a little bit because everyone spoke so highly of him (and he is a fairly reserved person), so I was also pretty nervous with the thought that he was interested in me. I didn't really know what that would look like.

I remember going to the flag football game one Sunday and thinking to myself, I wonder if he will say something tonight during this game? It happened to be that it was a really great game that we ended up winning, but Colin didn't say anything to me. I had kind of given up on him saying anything that night as my roommate Abby and I were walking to the car, but lo and behold, a few of our friends distracted the others while he called my name and asked me to go to coffee with him sometime that week! I answered "yes!" but said it way too quickly for someone who wasn't supposed to know this was going to happen… Smooth Sarah. We figured out a time before Cru to get coffee and left. As soon as we got in the car, I remember my friend Abby looking at me and saying "omg, did Colin just ask you on a date?!" I was too giddy at the moment to be able to articulate what had just happened, but eventually did as we made our way home!

All I have to say was coffee was incredible and I was hooked. He bought my delicious, iced, All In coffee and we sat on the couches by the fireplace. He told me right of the bat, "Sarah, I just want to be straightforward. I've been observing that you're a Godly woman and I would love to get to know you more if you're okay with that?" I'm sure I blushed, because my heart was bursting on the inside as I told him "I would love that!" As we talked, I was internally beaming because 1) he was so adorable and 2) he had thought of questions to ask beforehand :) It was much more effortless to talk to him that I had originally thought! After three hours of chatting, we were shocked at what time it was and had to rush to leave in order to make it to Cru meetings on time! (If you're reading this, I'm sorry David!!!)

The next two weeks were a whirlwind of happiness and joy unexplainable because of the grace God was bestowing on me through getting to know Colin. What surprised me the most about our initial getting to know one another was how easy it was to talk to him. Hours would disappear because we were both genuinely interested in getting to know who the other person was. We were both awkward at times (mostly me, but it's okay) and had no idea what we were really doing, but both had a lot of fun.

Probably one of my favorite nights was what I truly see as our actual first date (Colin disagrees). He came and picked me up at my house, and to my complete surprise, handed me three long-stemmed red roses when he arrived! I don't know why, but these flowers brought me such joy (maybe because @karlypetrella is obsessed with flowers so I was becoming obsessed, too)! Colin didn't tell me where we were going ahead of time. All I knew was that we were going to dinner. We went to eat at a Japanese steakhouse/sushi bar in Clemson called Tokyo and it was delicious! Both of us had sushi and shared some fried rice and talked for three hours in the restaurant. The waitress was fed up with us because she never ended up coming back to refill our drinks… A hilarious part of dinner was when Colin said "Oh my gosh, Mike Williams just walked in!" He expected me to be excited and to turn around toward the door and gawk at the Clemson football player. But I didn't. Later, I laughed hard because I realized he just wanted to grab the check so I wouldn't pay for it. He eventually got it when I went to the restroom toward the end of dinner!

We got back in the car once we finished and Colin turned to me and said, "Okay, so there's one more thing I have planned for tonight." Semi-knowing what he would say, but halfway in the dark, I was in anticipation as we drove to our destination! He took us to the intramural turf fields near Y-beach, we pulled out a blanket, I put on one of his jackets and we stargazed. This is one of my favorite things to do and Colin knew it and graciously planned this activity to help make this a great date! <3 My heart was already exploding already for this man and it had only been two weeks…

Surprisingly, Colin was super chatty! We talked about so many funny videos and watched many a shooting star – it was a beautiful, but chilly night and I was hyper aware that he kept scooting closer and closer to me until we were eventually touching shoulders! This made me so nervous… Eventually, we talked about what each of us had been feeling since the first coffee date. Up until this point, we hadn't talked about it and thought it was an appropriate time to do so! Colin brought up the relationship bar graph that Cru uses as a visual tool to help students create romantic relational boundaries. We talked through it and Colin shared that if we were going to continue spending the same amount of quality time together, we should probably commit to being in an exclusive relationship with one another. It all seemed so fast for me and, honestly, really scared me to think about being his girlfriend after only two weeks. What would people think? However, I knew he was right and I really like him and desired to be in a relationship with him, so I agreed to be in a committed relationship and was in utter shock and disbelief and on cloud nine all at the same time!

When we saw that it was already after midnight, we jumped up and realized that laying there for three hours watching the sky caused us to be pretty dizzy and made us laugh! It was a chilly night, so my feet were numb and Colin's knees were freezing cold, but neither of us cared too much! He took me back to my house and we said goodnight and parted ways. When I walked inside and told my roommates (who were half asleep) how it went, @karlypetrella was freaking out and said "OMG YOU'RE COLIN FAIR'S GIRLFRIEND!" All I could do was smile as that reality began sinking in on November 4, 2016.

The date and general location of the proposal wasn't a surprise to Sarah at all. We drove to Clemson to carry out what Colin had been planning a good portion of the summer! The way he proposed was the only surprise for Sarah, so Colin took full advantage of it :)

There were five locations Colin had planned to go to – the first being the botanical gardens, woops, actually the dikes. HE DROVE TO THE WRONG PLACE FIRST! So we went to real first location, the dikes, and Colin read the letter for that location. The letter was filled with fun memories that we had experienced together and it made Sarah cry (out of nostalgia and reality sinking in that the proposal was getting more real)! He then drove to the botanical gardens and read the second letter, again sharing memories we shared at this location. The same happened at the third location, University Village (Colin's apartment complex during his junior year), and at the fourth location, Tokyo! We ate dinner at an unexpected pace because there was nobody at the restaurant. So we sat and talked for a little while. Sarah's anticipation was getting the best of her. To kill some time before we went to the next location, we went to Wendy's to get frosties and talked at Abernathy Park! It was a very pleasant night to be outside and the frosties were delicious.

At the last location, Colin drove to the intramural fields where we had stargazed the night we officially began dating. There were so many people playing on the fields and Sarah was incredibly confused, nervously thinking that Colin would propose in front of a bunch of people! He kept driving, however, to a little cove on the water. There, he had arranged for one of our friends, Matt, to set up a table with two chairs, champagne, a vase of roses, and rose petals on the ground. As we rounded the corner and the table came in view, Sarah began crying a little harder than she had when we first began. Colin pulled out Sarah's chair, sat down, and then began reading the last letter he had written. This letter explained more memories we had shared around this location and how he was looking forward to remembering back that the best memory of this place would be the one he was about to initiate… He stood both of us up, got on one knee, pulled out the ring box (sideways at first), and asked Sarah to marry him. She quickly replied, "Of course I will!" We hugged and then Colin tried to put the ring on her wrong hand, but finally put it on the correct finger! We hugged again, took some pictures with our friend Allen who had been hiding in the woods, then we ate cake, drank champagne and chatted for a while (typical of our relationship) and eventually made our way back to Sarah's home in Gaffney. It was an incredibly sweet night of reflecting on all we have been through, the funny parts, awkward parts, and most meaningful parts of our relationship, the best of which are yet to come!