We first stumbled upon each other when we both swiped right on Bumble right before the snowstorm of 2021 that shut the whole city of Florence down! I was a year out of a tough relationship, and Clay had just moved to the Huntsville area for work the year before, doing the whole "work from home" thing while trying to build a community in a brand-new city that was socially shut down. When we matched on Bumble, it was a mere 10 days of easy, flowing conversation before I decided to dive in and ask Clay out on a date! On February 21, 2021, we met masked-up at Stars and Strikes for Clay's first game of bowling and a rousing round of arcade games, followed by soft drinks at the bar that Clay almost walked away and didn't pay for, burgers at Wahlburger's until they kicked us out 45 minutes after they closed, and a promise to see each other again. A couple of days later, Clay asks me to meet him in Bankhead for a hike! Normally, I would be super skeptical and not meet a total stranger in the woods days after I met him, but he made me feel a sense of comfort I've never felt before from someone, so after sharing my location with a couple of close friends to curb my slight skepticism, I met him in the remote, middle-of-the-forest trail head where we hiked to a beautiful waterfall then stood at our cars admiring the stars above us, silently unwilling to leave each other. I made sure to let my friends know that I successfully did not die in the woods! It's been history from there!

I started the proposal planning process in September. We visited quite a few ring dealers in the Huntsville and surrounding areas to find the perfect ring. Maggie gave me her top three to choose from, but for me, there was one perfect ring in those three for my beautiful soon to be fiancée. In October, I set things in motion by making the purchase on a day I was already going to be in the Huntsville area so I could swing by without her interest being spiked. I LOVE surprising Maggie. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to completely surprise her, but I really wanted the when to be a surprise for her. Surprisingly, we didn’t have any trips planned anywhere together, so I suggested we book an AirBnB somewhere close to see some waterfalls for her 27th birthday. One of our first dates was hiking to some beautiful waterfalls, so I thought it would be a special little callback to our early relationship…plus I LOVE hiking to waterfalls. She ended up falling in love with a glamping AirBnB in middle Tennessee, and lucky for me, it was less than 10 minutes away from a reservation-only waterfall hike…Perfect! We booked it and I booked the waterfall hike at the private resort. No one was scheduled to be at the resort from 11 am to 3 pm the day I planned to propose. Thankfully, it was easy to ask her to wear nice clothes for the hike since we often take pictures together, especially in scenic areas, with a tripod so we have memories to look back on. Maggie often looks back at her photo memories and it helps remind us of all our adventures together. This made a great excuse of it being a short “easy” hike where I wanted to get some great couple pictures together at the base of the waterfall. Another thing is Maggie and I love completing puzzles together. I think us being a perfect puzzle piece match together is a great representation of our relationship and is said by both of our families in different ways. Her mom in particular calls us two peas in a pod! Back in October 2022, our future wedding photographers were holding a mini (fall) session and we both JUMPED at the chance to be in front of their cameras. Joel and Amber took some incredible photos of us in the Twickenham district as all the leaves were changing colors. The photos were stunning, and one would make the perfect puzzle. I had one of the fall mini session photos turned into a 300-piece custom puzzle (easily done in one night on her birthday!) by Ravensburger, one of the main puzzle makers. When it arrived, I sneakily cut into the puzzle bag on the edge of the package writing to remove one piece. On this piece, I wrote “Marry Me?” as well as the date. The day before the proposal and the day we got to the AirBnB happened to also be her birthday. I gave her the custom puzzle as a gift! She absolutely loved it, and while I cooked dinner that night, she got to work on the puzzle. Pretty quickly, she noticed one piece was definitely missing. We both searched around for the “missing” puzzle piece for about 30 minutes before resigning to the fact that it must have been a faulty shipment and we’d just have to reship the puzzle so we had all the pieces – no big deal. Finally, the day I’ve been planning and scheming for finally arrived, the proposal to the love of my life. We checked in at the private resort to let them know we were there. We carried on exploring the rest of the old mill. We played a round of pool, one of our favorites relaxing activities to do at my first apartment in Huntsville, before heading to a game of darts. After darts, we sat down and Maggie played me “Sweet Nothing” by Taylor Swift on the piano then got started on our short hike. It was flat for quite a while before a short steep section with hand ropes and natural stairs. Finally, we found Carmac Falls. We took it all in for a little while before scoping out a place that would be best for taking pictures. But really, I had already done a lot of research as to where we would take these pictures. We set up Maggie’s phone on the tripod and changed out of hiking shoes and into our nice shoes we brought along. We started with a few shots of us facing the waterfall a good distance away followed up by some of us facing the camera. Then I asked if we could have some closer shots as well. I had her stand closer while I checked the camera to make sure everything was framed perfectly, us two fully in frame with the waterfall just off to the side. I also sneakily started my own phones audio recording and put it back in my jacket pocket opposite the camera. We then took a few photos before I turned to her and gave her the puzzle piece. I asked her to not flip it over just yet. I had written down exactly what I wanted to say on some notecards. These notecards are the same notecards I have given her our whole relationship for her to find sometime during the day on bad days, good days, and even the in-between days when I wanted to tell her words of encouragement, words of love, or even just the happy emotions I was feeling on some certain day. I read through everything I wanted to say to her on our proposal day, through both of our tears, before telling her to flip over the puzzle piece. As she flipped over the puzzle piece to the words “Marry Me?” I got down on one knee as I had practiced many times before to ask the same question. She said yes!!! The best words in my life I could hear.

When we first started dating, we did the long distance thing for a while. I worked and lived in Florence, and Clay worked and lived in Huntsville. Many miles were put on our cars until I made the move to Huntsville in late 2021. We shared two apartments together before we decided it was time to start looking for a house! In July of 2022, we found our dream starter house in the cutest neighborhood, and closed on that house in September. We've completed several projects to make the house feel like home, and we've got several more projects to go!

We've also traveled a LOT in our relationship. We've been to New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Salt Lake City three times, Boston, the Bahamas, and several other smaller places.

In June 2023, we made another big life decision and adopted Flo a new little sister! Zena was a beautiful one year old kitten at the time we adopted her, and she has brought so much joy into our house! Flo warmed up to her fairly quickly, and Zena is keeping Flo young!