Hunter and I met in January, 2020 in Cape Town, South Africa. I was working overseas as a missionary, and he was traveling to build his portfolio. We met through mutual local friends at a winery, but the first day I thought nothing of it (he was a tourist there for a few weeks, and I was living there.) The next day my friend, Dani, suggested that Hunter and I hangout because we were the only two that would want to do touristy things, so I went to meet Hunter at the aquarium. (He claims this as our first date.) We had the best time, and ended up hanging out for hours that day, exploring and making him try all the new foods at the local market.

From that point forward, we hung out almost every day until he had to leave to go back to America three weeks later. He made me promise that when I came back to visit America that I would go on a date with him, but a week later he surprised me by flying back to South Africa and showing up on top of a mountain on Valentine's day that I was hiking up with my friends. He spent the next month there getting to know me better, and at that point Covid was starting to become real. He, along with my family, convinced me that it would be best to return to America, so after a lot of tears, I did.

Not knowing how Covid would be, I assumed I was leaving for a month. Once I realized it would be a more long term thing, I moved to Starkville, where Hunter was, for four months. I then accepted a teaching position in Birmingham, so we both picked up and moved. It was easily one of the hardest years of both of our lives, but we got to grow together, which has been a beautiful thing.

The day we got engaged, I had won a couple's shoot with a friend that is a photographer. Hunter had reached out to her a week before to ask if he could propose during the shoot. So surrounded by creeks and waterfalls and the prettiest back drop, about an hour and a half into the shoot I turned around and he was down on one knee. I'm pretty sure that the first thing I said was, "are you serious?!" so well done on making it a total surprise, Hunter.

Turns out, all I had to do was fly halfway around the world to meet the love of my life when I least expected it. Thank God for Cape Town.