William and I met thanks to a little bit of fate and a mutual connection, aka, his best friend who was also his neighbor. His friend and I also went to school together and happened to have a huge crush on me. He decided to play matchmaker and introduced us on Facebook. What started as a simple back and forth chat on Facebook messenger turned into long conversations, getting to know each other, and realizing we had something special. When we finally hung out in person, he kissed me... twice. And then, in a moment of panic, I broke his heart and told him I never wanted to see him again. Clearly, that didn't last long. He gave me another chance, we found our way back to each other, and the rest is history. Turns out, the guy I once dramatically said "goodbye" to is now the one I can't imagine life without.

The morning of November 15th, I had this feeling in my stomach that I could not shake. William had made plans the weekend prior for a nice boat ride in St. Pete, the boat which his uncle's friend owned and offered to take us on for the proposal. I tried telling myself it was just a cute date night, but my intuition was telling me otherwise. He told me to wear something nice because he wanted to look cute together, and I remember saying, "we're going boating, I don't want to get my clothes dirty." He smiled and said, "you won't." At that point, I had a feeling something might be up. He isn't usually the type to plan something like that for no reason, but I kept trying to convince myself it was just going to be a nice date night. We boated to a small island, he had his backpack with my tripod in it, and we went to a spot where it quiet, and there was a bridge in the background with the sunset. It was absolutely beautiful. He asked me to set up my tripod so we could get "cute photos together enjoying the sunset." As I turned around to set things up, he was getting down on one knee. He proposed with my mom's first ring, which completely caught me off guard and made the moment even more meaningful, and of course, I said YES! As we were walking back to the boat, a couple noticed we had gotten engaged and shared that, coincidentally, they had gotten engaged on the same island 30 years prior. It felt like such a special, full-circle moment, and in that moment when I looked at him, I knew we had always been meant to be; God had already written our story, we were just living it. It was the perfect start to our forever!