Our story begins in 2019, just after the start of the new year. Michael's brother, Will, had been dating my lovely, now future sister in law, bestie Jen. Jen had decided it had gotten serious enough that it was time for us to meet Will formally as her boyfriend. Michael and Chris Knight happened to be in town visiting Will the weekend we were all free. It was decided we would meet at The Alley in Aiken to go to the Tap Room, grab some dinner and play some games, which wound up including our first game of giant checkers (I won just in case you were curious). Michael had a definite interest in me, I was oblivious because I was too distracted by judging Will to see if he was good enough to deserve my Jen (he has proven he is for sure). It would be another two years before we would cross paths again.

In January of 2021 Will and Jen were preparing to move to New Mexico. Michael at this point had moved up to Augusta, and Jen jokingly said I would have to take care of Michael once they made the move. I told her to set up a game night to introduce the two of us, so it wouldn't be quite as awkward the first time we hung out without them. Jen set up the game night, with us and Will thinking it would just be the four of us. However, Will wound up inviting two other friends, and somehow the game night turned into me and Michael sitting on the opposite ends of their island and speaking very little throughout the night. The next day Jen and I hung out alone, and I told Jen to tell Michael to ask me out. I had heard so many good things from Jen and Kat, and had enjoyed the small bits of interaction we'd had the night before, so I decided to give it a try. Jen had sworn off trying to set up Michael anymore, but said she believed in our potential enough to give it one more try. Jen did her part, texted Michael to ask me out, and the rest is history. Two and a half years have gone by we've played many more games (including some checkers), had many fun date nights, traveled all over including New Mexico to visit the people we owe the credit for bringing us together, built a home together, and raised our sweet Daisy May, all leading to the big moment on August 5th.

I had absolutely no clue it was coming. Michael had mentioned doing what we call "fancy date night" almost two weeks prior on our next free night. The next free night we happened to have (or so I thought) was Saturday the 5th. Michael played it so cool, casually mentioning on Thursday that we could go back to the Alley Saturday to eat at a resturant we had been wanting to try for dinner and maybe get there early to hang out at the Tap Room before. I said it sounded great, still with no suspicions at all. Saturday rolled around and we treated it like every other day, just hanging around the house watching some TV and playing board games before we left that afternoon. We got ready, drove over to Aiken, and walked into the Alley to the Tap Room. Apparently we walked right past Grace and Seth, who were hiding out to take pictures of the event, and I didn't even notice them since Michael was speed walking to try and distract me. We both got some drinks, sat outside, and everything seemed totally normal. I went inside to get a refill, and Michael told me he was going to go over and check out the checker board where we played our first game together. I came back out, walked over to him, we talked for a moment, and then he got down on one knee and asked through some tears the question I'd been dying to hear "Will you marry me?". The answer, through many many tears was obviously yes! Grace snapped some more pictures and Michael suggested that we skip dinner and go straight to tell my parents, that they would be so excited, and I'd be too excited to tell everyone anyways that I wouldn't sit down and enjoy dinner. I agreed, so off we went to tell the family. When we got there, after picking up Daisy May, of course, we were greeted in the driveway by not only my parents, but also Michael's mom and dad. I busted into happy tears again, absolutely shocked by the surprise. Not even considering there could be more, I was ushered inside where our closest friends were hiding in the living room, causing so many more happy tears. We celebrated for hours with snacks and pictures, it was such an amazing day. I could never have imagined a proposal so surprising and amazing, and cannot thank all of our humans enough for helping him pull it off.

Now here we are, only months away from walking down the aisle to say I Do. We are absolutely so excited to spend May 11th having the best time celebrating this next chapter of our amazing love story with you guys!