We met at Liberty University in 2021 and had a few classes together for about 2 years before I (Carter) ever really paid attention to Lilly. Eventually I finally decided to start trying to talk to Lilly — the first couple conversations were very brief but Lilly had captured my attention. I tried to get Lilly to sit with me at church in January 2023 and was only successful once. Eventually I got fed up with not having anything reciprocated and decided to just be straightforward and ask Lilly to go to coffee with me the last week of school. I (Lilly) had already decided beforehand that I was only going to give Carter an hour maximum at coffee but we ended up staying and chatting for almost two hours! The next day, Carter asked me to go on a real date with him and so the following night, two days before graduation, we had our first date on May 10th, 2023. From that point forward, we kept in contact the entire summer. Carter came down to my house for the first time on July 21st for the weekend and he asked my dad for permission to date me. Carter and I saw each other almost every weekend, which made the distance from Lynchburg, VA to New Bern, NC feel just a little bit smaller. Being long distance really made us intentional with the time that we had together in person and over the phone and we both feel like that helped us get to know each other very well pretty quickly. On October 21st, after just 3 months of dating, Carter asked me to marry him! Everyone has always told me, “When you know, you know,” and I was pretty skeptical of that, but now I know just how true it is. We’re very thankful for the Lord bringing us together and we are excited to get to serve Him together for the rest of our lives!