Patrick and Katie met in January of 2015 when Katie got in to the a cappella group Patrick was already a part of, Psalm 100. In the fall of 2015, Patrick became the music director of Psalm 100 and asked Katie and another member to be assistant music directors beneath him, thus creating a friendship that hadn't quite existed before. Their love for Jesus and for music is what drew them to each other. They remained friends until January 2016, when Patrick confessed his feelings for Katie and she, much to his surprise, felt the same! Patrick took Katie on their first date on January 17, 2016 to a restaurant in Wilmington, called The Oceanic, complete with stargazing, hand-holding and coffee. They made it official on April 5, 2016, after a couple of months of dating and gleaning wisdom from their friends and family. They dated until April 14, 2017, when Patrick proposed to Katie on her back porch in Colorado. They continue to strive to love each other and those around them with a love modeled after the great love they both receive from God on a daily basis, and hope to learn more about this in marriage!

Patrick and I talked about getting engaged for several months before it actually happened. I knew when Patrick got the ring and suspected that the proposal would be happening sometime soon afterwards, but didn't know exactly when. I flew home to Colorado to spend Easter weekend with my family on April 13th, and right before, I confessed to Patrick that I was suspicious he would show up unannounced and propose to me while I was with my family. Patrick quickly convinced me otherwise, and I somehow believed him and put the idea to rest. On Friday, April 14th, after spending a day with my mom and sisters, I arrived back home around 6:30, walked through the front door and saw a small chalkboard sign directing me to go upstairs, put on a nice dress, and not leave my room until 7:00. It took me a moment to process that these instructions were for me, that they were from Patrick, and that I was likely getting engaged! My mom and sisters left the house, I went upstairs, tried to catch my breath, changed, and then at 7:10 (Patrick pushed all the times back by 10 minutes), I went to the next station outside of her room, where a table was covered in pictures of and Patrick and me throughout our relationship, as well as letters I had written him both in friendship and dating. I got to take some time to relive old memories and old feelings until I went to the next station, where the dining room table was covered in letters from each of both Patrick and my family members, telling me why they were excited Patrick and I were getting engaged and joining families. After reading through all of the letters (with plenty of tears, might I add), I went to the next station, where Patrick had written me a letter, explaining that yes, we were getting engaged, and that he had missed his flight to get to Colorado that morning to add to the drama of the engagement (he got on another flight so it all worked out but it was pretty stressful for him!). I then picked up a bouquet of flowers by the door and walked up the stairs to the back porch, where there were market lights hanging, candles burning, and lots of flowers overlooking a dusky Denver city and Rocky Mountain skyline. After a few minutes, Patrick walked outside looking so handsome in a navy suit with his guitar, and we sang "My Love" together, a song that we have held very dearly throughout our relationship. At the end of the song, he surprised me with a verse and chorus he had written himself, and then he had me stand up and he proposed! It was beautiful and I soaked up every second of it. I was so surprised, happy, and excited! We then went to Chick-fil-a for dinner and celebrated with my family afterwards! It was by far the sweetest night of my life and I will cherish it for the rest of my life!

I didn't originally plan to propose to Katie on this day, actually. I had planned on doing it on Sunday, April 23rd, at one of our favorite spots, Fearrington Village. I had it planned out to the tiniest detail - dinner at our favorite restaurant, coffee at our favorite coffee shop, proposal in the gardens, and a party after that with our families and friends. But as I've learned over the years, sometimes God just has a different plan, and it really is always better. Katie, being the CIA detective that she is when it comes to this stuff, figured out the exact date and location of what I was planning. So I had two options: I could try to surprise her with the details of the proposal or I could try to surprise her with something else altogether. If you know anything about me, you know that I'm not a great performer, so I put my money on the second option.

On April 14th, I "woke up" at 3:30 AM to catch my flight in Raleigh. I put that in quotations because I really didn't sleep because I was so nervous. I've never loved someone this much and I wanted to make the day special for her, and I was nervous that I would do something wrong, say something wrong...you know, the usual things that people say to themselves when they really care about someone. I got to the airport an hour and a half before my boarding time, and due to it being Easter weekend, I missed my first flight. I had my dialogue planned out for the customer service lady - "look, I'm proposing to my girlfriend today and she will never let me live this down if I miss this flight you don't understand she will have the upper hand in every argument ever" - but before I had to go there, she put me on another flight. If I had an MVP trophy to give that day, it would have gone to her.

So my layover in Detroit turned into a layover in Minneapolis, but I ended up getting to Denver on time. Troy, Katie's dad, picked me up and after a quick bro hug, we went to lunch. We had already talked about the idea of a proposal a lot, so we mainly just talked about life and how excited we were, and he gave me some solid advice on the more challenging parts of getting married at a younger age. If one thing is true about Troy Spring, it's that he loves his family. For the rest of the afternoon, Troy and I bought lots of flowers, candles, and other decorations, and we set up the house as we listened to music.

When it came time, I went into the room where I planned to hide and I locked the door. Words can't express how nervous I was when I heard Katie enter the house. I paced back and forth so many times that my pacing distance probably could have covered the state of Colorado. It was time for me to open the door and meet her on the porch, so I did. Katie looked beautiful, as she always does, and seeing her calmed me down. We sang our song together, then I asked her to be my wife and she said yes. Then we hugged, kissed, and naturally, went to Chick-fil-A. We even got the we-just-got-engaged discount with some free cookies. After that, we got to hang out with her family and friends. I will most definitely always cherish the time I got to spend with Katie and her family that day!

The ring and being together is not the ultimate prize by any means! What's additionally so special about marriage is what it symbolizes. It's a symbol of both of our promises to stay true and loyal to each other. Our choice to love the other even when it's hard to (and vice versa). Marriage is a symbol of Christ and the church, or Christ and us, where we are beautifully, selflessly, and recklessly pursued in which we respond with humble submission and adoration. Christ loves you and me so much that he humbled himself to live a perfect life on this earth that none of us can live and at the end of his life, died a cruel and humiliating death on a cross, taking on all our sin and all our shame. THIS is the kind of love that we crave, that we search for high and low. Marriage is merely meant to be a reflection and symbol of this love, and Patrick and I hope to spend our lives pushing the other into that love and sharing it with everyone we meet!

Neither of us are perfect by any means, nor can we love each other perfectly even though we both crave that (and receive that from Christ only). Fundamentally a Christian marriage is to bring two people together in a union designed to help point the other towards Christ through discipleship, accountability, and encouragement. As long as we are both pursuing Christ first, we are as a result going to love each other more, we are going to be faced with each other's sin even more as we are forced to be more vulnerable in that sense, and in return we will learn to give even more grace, just as Christ does with us. The more we know Christ the more we realize how broken we are, the more grace we accept from Him, and the more we grow to know, love, and depend on God.

During engagement we have already learned so much about healthy growing pains, more of what it looks like to challenge the other to be more like Christ and how marriage reflects the Church's relationship to God. It's been crazy fun to be making our dream a reality, and to start to get a better picture of what it will look like to live life alongside each other. We are incredibly blessed to have found each other and to be not only in love, but best friends and a brother/sister in Christ. MARRIAGE, HERE WE COME!