We're so excited to celebrate with you!

Byron will contest to this meet-cute, but I have witnesses! It was an end of the semester pool party in May, and he was wearing a neon yellow bathing suit with one of those mini Bud Light cans in his hand. I made an amazing Sponge Bob joke about his muscles, and he thoroughly ignored me. Cut to our friend groups merging and social media requests, a couple of likes here and a couple of comments there, and he was in my DMs (for our older folks, that is "direct messaging inbox"). We exchanged numbers and quickly made plans to go out on the town, and realized we enjoyed each other's company. We both weren't ready for anything serious, so spent the summer just getting to know each other without the pressures of "where is this going?". After a few midnight, movie-parking-lot talks that lasted longer than the movie we had gone to go see, I knew I was in trouble. We spent every free second together and instead of growing tiresome, it just left us in need of more. After a trip to the Bahamas the following March, we realized we couldn't ignore our feelings any longer and finally spoke those three little words: "I love you". In the years since we have faced so many adversities and triumphs. As many valleys as peaks. The constant has always been our love and respect for one another. When most would have thrown in the towel, we made the commitment to build and strengthen. We are completely different people than the kids who met at that pool party all of those years ago, but we have grown together, merging passions and goals while maintaining our individual identities. We're finally ready to begin this next chapter of our lives as husband and wife.

We started a little tradition of camping outside of Asheville to try and catch peak leaf viewing. This particular fall, Byron was acting a little strange. I chalked it up to the stress of being a new homeowner. The first night by the campfire Byron was abnormally quiet and introspective, but again, I didn't let myself conjecture of what surprises he might be trying to conceal. The next day, we drive over to Max Patch. There was a routine traffic stop at the base of the mountain, and Byron was too annoyed for the occasion. I opened up the glove compartment to look for his registration, not knowing there was an empty ring box hidden underneath loose papers. Eventually we make it through the check point, and Byron is booking it to the parking lot. He claims it was to beat sunset as he didn't want to hike in the dark. That answer satisfied any lingering suspicions. We make it to the top of the mountain through trees laced with icicles (we missed peak leaf viewing). And within moments, Byron gets this gleam in his eye and asks a "stranger" to take our picture. He drops to one knee and barely gets out the words "Will you marry me?". Said stranger was actually an old friend of his who Byron hired to capture the moment. I cried and may or may not of yelled an expletive, especially after I saw a sparkly diamond and not a piece of twine I'd envisioned. That night, we decided to celebrate at my favorite brewery in Asheville, Green Man. The hour drive was excruciating as my mother, the one person I wanted to share the news with the most in the world, would not answer her phone! Low and behold, she and some of my closest friends and family were all hiding in a secret room waiting to congratulate us. The ugly crying commenced, and hugs were given one by one. After repeated offers to put us up in a hotel that we graciously refused, we retired to our campsite. The snow started to fall as we sipped wine by our campfire and stared up at the stars. My boy did good.