We met in Nashville in February of 2014. We had each accompanied our friends who were dating one another on a weekend getaway in Nashville, which was the mid point between Chicago, where Sami was living, and Fayetteville, North Carolina, where Reece was training at Fort Bragg. After the short weekend, we spoke on the phone almost every night until we'd planned our next trip to get together in North Carolina. During that trip, we made our relationship official and began a year of traveling back and forth to visit one another and phone calls lasting hours when we were apart. Reece completed his training and was stationed at Fort Campbell and Sami had completed her graduate program in Marriage and Family Therapy.

Reece left on his first deployment in the Spring of 2015, and when he returned in July, we moved into our first apartment together in Clarksville, Tennessee. We quickly found that living together was so much more enjoyable than dating long distance, and found that our love and friendship continued to grow. Two deployments and one move to a bigger apartment later, we bought a house in September 2017.

Before Reece left for his fourth deployment in February 2018, we took a belated Valentine's Day weekend retreat to The Opryland Resort in Nashville. It was during that weekend that Reece got down on one knee and popped the question with Sami's mom's ring.

We are so excited to start the next chapter of our lives together as husband and wife and looking forward to celebrating this occasion with all of you!

Sami and Reece