How we met:

I have been praying for the person God has for me since I was 14 years old. I spent many years crying out to God, dealing with frustration with God’s timeline, wrestling with feelings that maybe God doesn’t have it in His will for me to get married, and jealousy of others getting married. I spent many years doing the whole online thing in my 20s and was going about in the wrong way because I was doing it trying to make it happen and doing it in a desperate way. God told me around 30 to give up online dating so I did for about 3 years. Around late September of 2019 I started praying and asking God if it’s okay to get online after taking years off from online dating. I was hesitant to do it but after praying for awhile and not hearing a firm no from God, I decided I would do it in October 2019. I told God I would casually check it out for a month and if I didn’t see any solid possibilities then I would lay the online dating thing down for good. I talked to a few men and only had 5 first dates and a few second dates. David was my first date. David and I met through the dating app called Hinge. Online dating in the Christian community can get a bad wrap from those with strong opinions that it’s taking control out of God’s hands. I disagree. We live in a different world now. It’s all in how you go about using online dating. When you have God in your decision making with the process of online dating you can end up with a with beautiful ending if that’s God’s will for you.

Our dating adventure:

David and I began dating on October 27th, 2019. We met at Cafe Intermezzo off Ashford Dunwoody. We didn’t see each other much between October and December so we had a slow start. When January 2020 hit things really started to take off. I was in awe of how sweet David was. He wrote me a sweet birthday card and Valentine’s Day card which is when I found out that he has a beautiful gift for writing the best cards. He treated me like a princess on Valentine’s Day and we had only been seeing each other for a little bit. When covid hit in March-April of 2020 we had to get creative with seeing each other since everyone was on lockdown. David would drive all the way from the Athens area every weekend to pick me up and bring me back to his parents house do dinner dates at their house and see each other since we couldn’t go anywhere. We only saw each other on weekends at that time because of covid and the fact that David lived near Athens. Our like for each other grew a lot in the those two months. When David moved to Atlanta we started to see each other more. Once Georgia opened up in late May/early June we started to go to Christ Covenant Church. At that time I also brought David into my big church community of friends which quickly became his too. We both fell in love with Christ Covenant Church in Atlanta and became members together. We are very grateful for all our friends and family that have been there for us in our dating season. Over time our like for each other grew to love. This became our love story. God is continuing to write our story and we feel blessed and overwhelming by God’s grace in our love story.

The Proposal (David’s point of view):

We have been planning for a ski trip in Park city Utah for a few months. We talked about it being a guys only trip until one of our really good friends overheard us and she invited all kinds of people. And it turned into the best coed trip/the best trip I’ve ever been on. Obviously for more reasons than one.

But let’s back up a little. Joy has been asking me week after week when I was going to propose, and can we go look at rings again because she wasn’t sure about the one we picked out. All the time she is saying all of this I’ve already made a secret trip over to purchase the ring that we picked out together. I knew that I wanted to propose in Park City but the jeweler told me that it was going to be until mid February until they have the ring back to me for sizing purposes. FYI: Joy has a 3.75 ring finger size! I told them I need the ring back on the 2/3 because we’re leaving on the 2/4. After discussing with the manager they told me that they would make it happen and they did!! A little side note that Joy doesn’t know until now: I was talking to her over the phone while I was driving to get the ring. And when I pulled into the jewelers parking lot, I told her my mom was calling about something important so I had to go.

Now that was taken care of I just had to figure out where I was going to propose. I have never been to Park City so I was forced to wing it. I trusted that when I saw it, God would let me know that this is the spot. After the first day of skiing we walked over to a skating rink that was located just off the slopes. Surrounding the ice skating rink there were sectioned off group seatings with a fire pit. It was so cozy. I remember walking away to a little coffee shop to grab coffee and hot chocolate. On my way back I saw it. I saw the spot!! It was perfect. It was on the opposite side of where everybody was sitting. Same layout with the cozy couch and fire pit in the ice-skating rink, but it had the little cute buildings in the background with a gap that showed the peak of the mountains. It was absolutely gorgeous. I knew this was my spot. Now I just had to coordinate and plan with a few people to make this happen.

Now it’s Saturday, February 6th. Proposal Day!! My trusty co-pilot Stephen Pline helped me make sure that Saturday was going to be a relaxing day. We pre-planned to go snow tubing and be back to the cabin to change and then go to “take pictures”. Problem #1: the earliest time to tube was 2:00-5:00. Well, we needed to be back at the cabin at 5:00 to change and go get pictures. The plan was to leave tubing just after 4:00 to give the ladies enough time to change. Everyone knew it was a big deal to leave on time except for the person having the most fun... Joy! She was having such a blast tubing that when it was time to go she requested one more ride. This was going to put us about 20 minutes behind but I couldn’t say no to that face! She was too cute and happy!! Anyways we get the one last ride in, Stephen drives like a psycho, the girls (AKA Joy) takes forever to get changed, and we are off to get some pictures! We packed the car with Stephen, Gigi, Elise, and Liz.

We get to the spot. It wasn’t going to work. There are kids all over the ice... being kids. I started thinking to myself, “Wow, this isn’t romantic at all!” Turned around to Liz and Elise and shook my head. We needed to find another spot. I officially got a little nervous because this was my last opportunity for the trip. We walked to the other side and around the corner and it was a dead end! Then it happened. As soon as I turned around it was clear. It was as if God painted a beautiful picture for me. It was the sunset I was hoping for; the snow covered mountains in the background; ice skating; some of Joy’s closest friends... it was perfect.

Now it was go time! I took a look over at my main man Mr. Stephen Pline, whispered, “This is it, right?” He gave a Pline smirk and nodded an obvious YES.

So here we go!! Joy and I took a couple of photos then it was time for the hardest part, getting down on one knee. I remember I was unable to recall what I had written to say to Joy. As I got down on one knee I felt an overwhelming calm wash over me, it was if God was speaking to me. I didn’t feel anyone else’s presence around us but the two of us and God. Then she said YES! After it was all done we realized they were playing the Lauren Daigle song, “You Say” over the speakers. It was a beautiful moment that we will never forget.