“Maybe you could stop for coffee on your way back home or something.”

I said a version of this to Grace, regrettably, after our first date. We had been set up by mutual,

matchmaking friends on a quasi-blind date as Grace was driving from Lexington, KY to Charleston,

SC. En route, she made the easy stop in Columbia (my place of residence) for dinner and a walk. It

was a quintessentially lovely Columbia evening in early December, the city was shining and one

couldn’t escape its electricity that night if they tried. Already dark with a tender crisp in the air, Grace

arrived to Columbia’s legendary Canal and Riverfront Park as I anxiously paced on the sidewalk

making a feast of my fingernails. Our communication at this point amounted to maybe 10 texts—

nothing more than arranging place and time— making us essentially strangers. Despite the crisp, I

was sweating and immediately set a near frantic pace on our walk. Barring sweat and initial nerves,

the stroll offered a great chance for us to meet. We talked of family, the weird existence of being

freshly post-grads, faith, friends, college experiences, and hometowns. Circling back to the initial

quote it’s important I make this clear here: I had a great time on this date. We walked. We dined. We

laughed. The stuff of dreams. However, I came in with low expectations due to all the forces

preventing this from being anything more than a casual meet and greet. Those forces being seven

hours of distance, no previous relationship or familiarity with one another, transitional points of life,

I lived with my parents, I had never seen Phantom of the Opera, I wasn’t aware that Kentucky was

the best state, Grace, inexplicably, wasn’t completely and instantly charmed by Columbia, I didn’t

know how to pronounce Louisville, and Grace didn’t (doesn’t) like Waffle House.

There was a lot working against us.

But Grace was on something of a different page. After I made the lamentable remark about maybe,

possibly, grabbing a super chill coffee on her drive back, Grace asked if I wanted, instead, to come

down to Charleston on Sunday, two days from then. Excited and surprised, I agreed.

What follows is a year and a half of long-distance dating, an affair that required the sacrifice of at

least one of our vehicle’s transmissions, Monday mornings— post visit weekends— defined by

heavy eyes and a head in the clouds, and countless evenings on Facetime. We saw each other roughly

one weekend a month. Thursday evening and Friday afternoons were all excitement, anticipation and

giddiness. Monday mornings, in comparison, were like being tossed from your warm bed onto a

frozen lake. The emotional swings did no one any favors.

I’ll spare the hardships of long-distance and shed light on the often-neglected merits of the situation.

The conditions prevented any games, any half-in half-out tom-foolery, from playing a part in the

relationship. Four hundred miles of distance will make it pretty clear if the relationship is worth

pursuing. Inevitably, somewhere around hour 3 of the 7-hour drive, I-40 winding me through the

mountainous North Carolina landscape, I would face the questions “Is this worth it?” or “What am

I doing?” Early on, it was near impossible to convince a certain part of my brain that driving over

400 miles for less than 48 hours of time together was worth it. Yet, these questions were nowhere to

be found once I reunited with Grace. After each visit the commitment grew while the doubts

shriveled. The time together, though sparse and short, was consistently more than enough to continue pursing

and scheme for a way to change geographical circumstances.

And changed they did. Many, many prayers were answered in the spring of 2023. I did my best to

not beg Grace to come to Charleston with me and was as cool as I could manage about what our

relationship would look like in the following season. In March, however, Grace told me that she

wanted to move to Charleston later that summer. We had briefly, shyly, and guardedly discussed

marriage at this point. But the decision to move to the same place felt like a tacit commitment to the

future. The floodgates for conversations of marriage opened and there was no shutting them.

To recount this story is to be reminded of how much this relationship has been out of our hands,

how many logistics had to come together for it to work, and how tenuous and improbable it felt at

times. To recount it is to be reminded that we can only receive such a blessing as a gift. The Lord has

shown us his kindness in this season and we are so excited to celebrate with you.