Our story starts off like a lot of Millennial love stories start. During a once in a lifetime traumatic world event (the COVID-19 pandemic) and on a dating app (it was Hinge for those that want to know). Johnnie had been fighting for his life for months trying to find love. Meanwhile, Zoey had downloaded the app and been on there for a whopping 48-hours before she came across Johnnie’s profile and thought to herself that this “frat boy profile” was worthy of a swipe right. If we’re being honest, the thing that caught her eye most was his ideal first date being “tacos, margaritas, and live music.”

Our first date was on October 19th, 2020. If you know Johnnie, then you already know he was 5-10 minutes late to the date, and he missed the turn into the Taco Boy parking lot and had to go down the street to turn around and come back. Zoey would soon learn that being a few minutes late and missing turns because he ignores the GPS would be common occurrences.

From the moment we came masked face to masked face outside of Taco Boy, everything felt natural and like we’d known each other our entire lives. The liquid courage in the form of the shot of Appleton Estate Johnnie took and the happy hour Zoey went to before the date might have helped, but let’s just chalk this up to love at first sight.

The first date went on for hours, and we talked about everything from our musical interests to goals we have for the future to college memories. Everything clicked, and we talked nearly every day from that day forward.

It was a couple of weeks before the second date since Zoey worked night shift at MUSC at this time, but that second date had a very critical element to it: Most Beautiful Dog Buddy Boy Winston would get to meet and approve (or disapprove) of this candidate to be his dog dad. Fortunately for Johnnie, Winston instantly approved and the rest is history.

Now, flash forward a couple of years to the engagement. Johnnie has secured the perfect ring thanks to the screenshots of Zoey’s Pinterest board that Shelby (the Maid of Honor) provided, and he’s created the perfect, intimate plan to propose in their first home they’ve rented together. So with Winston in a bow tie and rose petals lining the hallways and organized in the shape of a heart on the floor at Johnnie’s feet, he took Zoey by the hands and asked her to be his girlfriend since he hadn’t officially done that prior to this moment. Zoey laughed and called him a bitch, but she didn’t know that there was a second half of that little speech which ended in Johnnie getting down on one knee and asking her to marry him. Thankfully, she said YES so we could get to this very special day.

Thank you all for taking the time to read Our Story, and we can’t wait to celebrate (and we mean CELEBRATE) our love together with you all on October 19th, 2024.