Going to school at Wake forest I knew I wanted to join a club but I wasn’t quite sure what. I went to the activities fair just to see what clubs I may want to join. I saw a few that looked interesting and I knew I wanted to do a sport if some sort since I grew up always doing one. I saw the rowing team and it looked really fun! All the team seemed like good people and I had never tried rowing. There was also a running team, and since I had run in high school that was also interesting. In the end I decided to try running just to stick with what I knew. It turns out I should have done rowing because the running team was a bit too fast and I didn’t have anything in common with the team.

Fast forward to second semester I decided to try something else. My friends who lived on my hall ironically were on the rowing team and I was still interested in trying it so I decided to go to the first practice. Since I was new to the team and most people had been there for a semester the coach had me learning to row on the erg. Since there weren’t enough ergs for the whole team, the coach had women erg first then do strength second and the men do strength first and erg second. So I was ergung with the women first. The first teammate I saw was right in front of me and the coach told me to follow her and imitate her form. Naturally I was impressed since the coach thought she was the one to watch. I later learned that this was Emily.

For the next few weeks I got to know the team including Emily at practice and the team breakfast we would have every morning. Since there weren’t too many people up before 6 am we pretty much had the dining hall all to ourselves. The team had mentioned a trip that they were going to have and with me having “FOMO” and wanting to meet everyone I decided to go. They called the trip ski weekend but we never end up skiing, essentially we just go to a cabin and hang out as a team for a weekend. 

At this trip one junior, Michael, decided to take me under his wing and he happened to be best friends with Emily. At one point the senior captain had drank a bit too much and was throwing frozen pizza rolls at people as a joke so Michael and Emily were protecting me and keeping me company. From then on I would talk to Emily a lot, especially since she was good friends with my friend Paul who lived on my hall. Nothing really came of our relationship more than a crush. I am not one to initiate a romantic relationship and neither is she.

The next year Emily and I happened to have physics together. Surprisingly we never studied too much together, I think neither of us wanted to intrude. But toward the end of the semester we finally moved seats to sit closer together and had study sessions before tests behind the welcome desk at the university center. Then the next semester I went abroad but we still kept in touch. We would send each other movie suggestions and I would keep up with how things were going on the rowing teams.
Junior year we started talking a lot more. We were both on the leadership team for the rowing club and were in our hardest classes of college. There were numerous study sessions where I would quiz her on the muscles of the human body and she would quiz me on the Krebs cycle.
During finals week Emily took me to get my first legal drink, but only one since I had a final the next day. Then a couple days later I drove Emily to the airport to fly home for break. That was the trip that we officially started dating!
The semester after that we were always together. Going to formals, weekend dinners, lunch in between classes, and of course 5am for practice. Sadly that was Emily’s senior year so that’s when the long distance started.
We tried to make it work as best as we could just knowing we were doing it to finally live together. She went to Baltimore for grad school so luckily it wasn’t too far. We would see each other no less than once a month which isn’t ideal but with our busy schedules we made it work. During the years of Covid that was hard. We tried to meet up as much as we could but with quarantines it was hard to see each other.
When I finally graduated from grad school then we moved within 100 miles of each other! We could finally meet up every weekend Emily wasn’t working and it was even better that my schedule is flexible. We did this for ~2 more years then got an apartment together!
Moving in together was all we had hoped for. We could finally come home to each other and share how our days were in person. Soon after we got Nala a little calico cat so we are now a small family of 4, with Kona:)
After a year of living together there was no reason to wait to get married! So in October of 2023 I reached out to a family friend to get a ring made. Little did Emily know it was sitting in a bag of protein powder for 2 months before our trip to Cape May.
We had planned a trip with our friends Elena and Ben to go to Cape May and I knew that would be the spot to propose. We had been there on a trip together the year before and loved it. It is a nice beach town that’s not too crowded and has tons of things to do. Our favorite was a vineyard called Hawk Haven. I told Emily that I would see if they could give us a tour of the vineyard but really I was asking what they could do for the big moment.
The team at Hawk Haven were so accommodating! They directed me to Celine, an amazing woman who sold the tour wonderfully. She set up a blanket in the vines with a bottle of champagne and had a chocolate and wine tasting ready for us afterward.
When we walked in she acted like she didn’t know who we were and asked for our names and favorite wine. Then when we walked past the vines and saw the blanket she even told us that they had a photo shoot before we came so that was from that. Then when we got to the vines she gave us an excuse to walk down and Emily fell for it and we went to the blanket. I then turned to Emily and said a few things, which then it clicked for her. She told me to wait because she still had a glass of wine in her hand:) Then I got on one knee and asked her to marry me.
She was so excited and our friends got so many pictures and a video. Then we enjoyed the rest of the weekend with a nice dinner and our fun bed and breakfast.
I am so excited to spend my life with Emily and see what the future holds for us. We hope you all enjoy the wedding to share in our love and excitement for the day!