Our story began in 2014 when we were both in 7th grade. We first crossed paths at my brother’s golf banquet, which we both attended. I was curious about him since he was the coach’s son, I asked my brother about him but didn’t learn much. After that day, we rarely saw or heard anything about each other.



Fast forward to freshman orientation 2016—John Thomas had moved from Karns to Oak Ridge for high school. As we were navigating our schedules, I saw John Thomas walk into the biology class we were going to have together. We immediately recognized each other from that day in 2014 and we officially met that day.


Throughout that school year, we slowly became close friends. Later on, John Thomas began to show interest in me, but I didnt feel the same. It wasnt until sophomore into junior year that I started to show interest in him, and we began dating on January 13th, 2018 and weve been together ever since.

Over the 6 years of John Thomas and I dating, there were discussions about marriage but the topic of engagement did not become truly serious until the end of junior year in college. We had been having conversations about when a engagement might be realistic for us. Getting some exciting news about the future educationally, we were able to see when a marriage and wedding could be in the near future. Over the months leading up to the proposal, John Thomas did a great job at leading me to believe that an engagement could not happen until way later than it did. Little did I know he already had a ring long before and that my college senior pictures would turn into the best surprise proposal.