We met as resident assistants for the North/South Carrick buildings at UTK. We started as friends before we started dating but the Carrick's is where it all started!

Our first Christmas together in Eli's apartment complete with matching PJ pants (dinosaurs dressed like Santa of course), gingerbread house making, and Christmas tree decorating.

For part of Macy's birthday, Eli scheduled pictures together because- while dating in the middle of a pandemic allows for just so many picture worthy moments together-the number of pictures we had together was minuscule.

We had our graduation ceremonies together. Eli got to walk in his graduation ceremony after graduating the year previously during COVID-19; although he was a year late for the walk it meant we got to walk together in Neyland Stadium!

In May we started fostering our kittens Woody and Jessie and then officially adopted them a few weeks later in June!

For Eli's birthday we traveled to his hometown (Milan, TN) and made the short-ish drive to Memphis for Macy's first visit there!

Macy got Eli to fall in love with Disney World just as much as her. This also happened to be the trip Eli told Macy's parents his plans to marry her.

We visited Charleston, South Carolina to design Macy's engagement ring and explore the city.

In August Eli started Law School at the University of Tennessee Knoxville and Macy started an accelerated BSN program at Lincoln Memorial University. There were multiple ice cream runs to Cruze Farm to help with the stress of two intense programs.

Eli proposed! In the place we had taken many walks and dreamed about living one day, Eli asked Macy to marry him under a gigantic Evergreen tree (something that holds a special meaning for them). One of Macy's best friends, Emma, was hiding in the bushes to capture it all!

We finally took our engagement pictures at the Knoxville Botanical Gardens ; one of our favorite places to picnic.

We rescued our third fur-baby from Adopt-a-Golden Knoxville. Gus is a purebred golden retriever who's mom was rescued by AGK from a breeding mill along with his 10 other liter-mates. He is now gigantic (on track to be 100lbs) and has completed his testing to be Macy's service animal (but his training will continue for the next several years as he specializes and continues to practice).

Macy graduated summa cum laude from nursing school in December and was able to actually start planning the wedding!