Zoe and Max when they were 13 and 14 years-old. Max was sitting behind Zoe on the first day of Eighth Grade in Ms. Allen's Physical Science class, flinging little folded pieces of paper at her back. (He claims now he was playing "paper football.") Annoyed, Zoe turned around and said, indignantly, "Are you flirting with me?"

Max said, "Ew! NO!"

It took them three years to recover from the paper football incident and come to a truce in 11th Grade English class. That class was paired with their lunch period, and Zoe and Max were two of the only Juniors assigned to that schedule. On the first day of school, Zoe stood in the cafeteria awkwardly, looking for a place to sit among all the Freshmen and Sophomores. Max waved her over and they sat next to each other (in lunch, and in class) every day that year. (If they got to class and someone else had taken Max's seat next to Zoe, they would both be silently annoyed). They had a convenient arrangement: Zoe would help Max pass the daily English quizzes on Horace's Odes, and Max would give her his cafeteria French fries.

By their Senior year, paper football was long forgiven. They started dating on October 11th, 2017 after months of awkward teenage flirting. As per tradition, Max came with an offering of French fries when he showed up one night at Zoe's parents' house and asked her to be his girlfriend.

They both went to the University of Florida and stayed together all through college. When Zoe started applying to law school, Max promised her he would follow her anywhere. (Just not New York City). Now they live in Durham, North Carolina, where Max works as a Mechanical Engineer at Duke Energy and Zoe is a student at Duke Law.

In the nine years since they met, they've adopted one dog (Goose) and two cats (Penny and Odin), lived together in two different apartments and one townhouse, dealt with an unfortunate flea situation, learned to drive (some of us later than others), graduated high school and college, and started their first "big kid" jobs. They've grown up, together.

Around the five-year mark, Zoe started telling Max her ring finger was feeling very cold. Summer of 2023, Max decided to antagonize Zoe. Knowing she hated square diamonds, one day, he said, “I don’t want you to be disappointed when I propose, so I’m going to tell you now. The squares were much bigger for the same price, and I figured you would want a bigger diamond. So I got the square. Don’t be mad.” Another day, “Ring size is just shoe size, right?” Worse still, “Do you want to try it on with your eyes closed?”

Finally, on October 19th, 2023, Zoe's friend texted her to cancel their (entirely made-up) plans for the evening. Sneaky Max "last minute" found something for them to do and took Zoe to a cooking class he'd really had booked for weeks. While they made steaks in red wine sauce and sweet potato gnocchi from scratch (still potato, but a step-up from French fries), Zoe's friend was back at their townhouse, setting up rose petals and strings of pictures. In the car, about fifteen minutes away from the proposal, Zoe said: "I don't think I'm ever going to know when it's coming."

Back at the townhouse, Max got down on one knee and asked Zoe to marry him. The ring was beautiful, round, and fit perfectly.

Zoe and Max are so excited to take this next step in their lives together. Each of you have supported them and their relationship, and they are thrilled and honored that you will spend this special day with them. Please come prepared to swat away paper footballs and take a quiz on Horace.

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