Well, it was the summer going into junior year of high school. Scott went to Goodpasture in Madison, TN, and I went to Pope John Paul II in Hendersonville, TN. The fun thing to do in the summer was to go downtown to teen night at one of the bars on 2nd avenue called Luau Louie's (no longer there, pretty sure it was condemned). My dad and brother would drop my friends and me off, and they would go downtown to shoot pool and hang out until they picked us up. On the other hand, Scott's parents probably didn't know he was out downtown. This is where we officially met, and Scott even wrote on my Facebook page that summer, "Happy birthday 😃 I love you!".

Well, fast forward to the fall of 2014, when we both started college in Knoxville, TN. I was home one weekend and decided to send him a text just to catch up. The next day he sarcastically texted me and said, "Hey, guess what?" to which I responded, "what?" and he said, "my phone does work to text you first." And from then on, we talked pretty much every single day. In November, I asked him to be my first Delta Gamma fall formal date.

The rumor was he was planning to officially ask me out when we went to Ober Gatlinburg by January of 2015, and then it never happened. So, he held out until he took me to Ruth's Chris for Valentine's day to officially ask me out, and we have been together since. If you got lost in the story, he asked me out in February 2015, so we will have been together for 7 years in February 2022.

Between then and now, I moved to Memphis after my junior year of college to attend pharmacy school at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. The plan was to be there for one year and then complete my degree from the Nashville campus. FYI, the state of Tennessee is very long, and Memphis to Knoxville is not an easy drive. We dated long distance for 2 years. At the start of year two of long-distance, I adopted Derby, a red Goldendoodle, who is the best pup in the world. He pretty much goes everywhere he can come with us.

In 2019, Scott completed his BS degree in Construction Science at the University of Tennessee. He then moved back to Nashville and has worked at Crain Construction in Nashville as a Project Engineer. I completed my MBA in November of 2020 and my PharmD in May 2021. After graduation, I began my residency at the VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System as a pharmacist.

So if you've read this long, you probably are curious about the proposal. Scott proposed on Thanksgiving day at our lake house at Center Hill. I had no idea he even had a ring (yes, he picked it all out himself!). We never went to look at rings. I just showed him photos, many photos, and many Instagram posts. He got down on one knee right before we ate Thanksgiving lunch while we were supposed to just be taking a picture. He barely got the words out, but he smiled the entire time, as evidenced in the photos.

We are so thankful for all the people who have been a part of our story over the last almost 7 years. We have been through quite a bit in that amount of time, the good and bad, and we look forward to what the future holds for us. April will be here soon, and we can't wait to celebrate with you all then!

Love,

Courtney and Scott