Our story begins back in the summer of 2020. The global pandemic was in full force and I had just found out I was going to be moving from the small town in Harford County where I grew up, to somewhere new a few counties over. In just a few short weeks, I would be calling Carroll County "home."

One night, I was having dinner with my friend Morgan Grannas who had come back to Harco from Tennessee to visit for a weekend. We were discussing my big move and she mentioned she knew a guy who lived in Westminster that she had met in college. She told me we could FaceTime him so that I could "meet" him, and then I'd have a buddy out in Carroll County once I moved. She proceeds to call up Mark Hulse and anyone who knows Mark can probably guess how that conversation panned out!

Fast forward later that summer, Mark is sending me snapchats one day of him and one of his friends that he keeps referring to as "Hog." I wasn't really sure what to think of someone named "Hog" but Mark said that Hog thought I was pretty and I thought he looked cute from the pictures Mark was sending. Soon enough, I found myself wanting to know more about this guy "Hog". But during all of this, I was in the midst of a messy break-up, so my feelings and emotions were all over the place.

The following weekend, Mark invited me over to watch football with him and his friends. I asked if Hog was going to be there to which Mark replied, "Yeah with his girlfriend." Ouch. Consider me officially uninterested.

A few months went by and Shane had broken things off with his girlfriend and I was still trying to process the rough break-up I had gone through. I decided to add Shane on snapchat in November 2020 because Mark kept talking him up saying we have a lot of the same interests and that Shane really wanted to get to know me.

We started talking daily just getting to know each other. I never asked him for his number because I was afraid that would make me seem "too interested" and I wasn't even really sure how I was feeling yet. The break-up I had gone through still felt fresh and had ended on a pretty rough note, but I couldn't stop thinking about Shane.

On Thanksgiving of that year, we had been talking most of the day and he asked what my plans were and I mentioned that my family I was living with at the time was going out of town and I was planning to just hang out at my house. Shane was thoughtful enough to invite me to hangout so that I wouldn't be alone, but I just wasn't ready to meet him in person yet. I was afraid of catching feelings too soon or getting hurt again, so I told Shane we could hang out another time and I ended up going to my friend Gabby's house for dinner instead.

After that, things between Shane and I had kind of come to a pause. He already felt some type of way about us not hanging out on Thanksgiving, and there were a few other times after Thanksgiving where I was invited to hang out with Mark and Shane and their friends but I wasn't able to, and it made it look like I wasn't interested.

Shortly after the New Year in January 2021, I reached out to Mark because I hadn't heard from him or Shane in a few weeks. I asked if I had done something wrong, and Mark explained that Shane assumed I was not interested in him because I hadn't hung out with them and it looked like I was blowing them off every time they invited me to do something and I couldn't go. I explained myself to Mark and asked for Shane's number so that I could make things right because I felt bad that they had this wrong impression of me.

I reached out to Shane and explained my side and apologized if I had hurt or upset him in any way and of course he played it off like he didn't care and it was no big deal. I told him that I did enjoy talking to him and I was sorry for being so back and forth all those months and I told him that I would really like to get to know him and actually meet him in person and hang out just us two at some point. He was hesitant at first of course but agreed and a few days later we hung out for the first time at his sister Kerri's house where he was living at the time.

From that day on, we were inseparable! It didn't take long for us to make things "official," and to be quite honest our relationship was pretty fast-tracked from the start. We both had been through the wringer when it came to relationships, we wanted the same things out of life and figured, why delay the inevitable? We discussed marriage after only a few months of dating, and we started looking for houses after dating for about six months. After a month of house searching, much to our surprise, we found out I was pregnant! A few weeks before our sweet girl was born, Shane proposed and that was by far the easiest "yes!" of my life!

I knew pretty quickly after meeting Shane that we would spend the rest of our lives together. Being with him was effortless; I could be myself and I didn't have to try to be someone I wasn't just to impress him or keep his attention. It always felt (and still does!) as if we had been together our whole lives. As crazy as it may seem that we bought a house, had a baby, got engaged, and are getting married all within the first (almost) three years of our relationship, it's always felt so natural like it was meant to be!

We are so excited to celebrate our big day with our closest family and friends! We are honored that you all will be a part of celebrating the beginning of our forever <3