In all honesty, Ashton and I do not remember when we first met because we met online through mutual contacts (one of them being my ex). I think we started interacting sometime in 2009 or 2010, but we met in person for the first time on 4 July 2015 when Ashton was apartment hunting near where I was living at the time. We ate at a local pizza place across the street from my apartment, where he was very kind and the perfect gentleman. Something that I had not experienced in a very long time. Our friendship grew, and just seven months later, we shared our first kiss...the rest is history.

Ashton is well-known for waiting until the last possible minute to do things. His mentality is that we should all "wing it" at life and go with the flow. That being said, he dropped multiple hints at a proposal for almost a solid year before popping the question. He liked to keep me on my toes and even made a fake proposal, Jim Halpert (The Office) style, at a nice restaurant by pretending to drop to one knee and then end up pretending to tie his shoe that was ironically not untied in the first place...he thought he was the most clever man for that little stunt haha. The real proposal happened just 38 hours before he would be hitting the road to move across the country to Washington for his new duty station...you read that right...the man waited until we were lying in bed at 10 pm on a Thursday to ask me if I wanted to get married...no ring, no typical proposal that you see in the movies, just us getting ready to go to sleep. I told him that even though he liked to torture me with his "winging it" attitude, ring or no ring, I knew I wanted to be with him from the first time I saw him, so obviously I was gonna say yes! The next 36 hours would be a whirlwind of getting a marriage license, finding an officiant, and then choosing a location to have the civil ceremony. Being the planner that I am, I had already bought a white dress as a "just in case" for this exact situation, so I was ready to expect the unexpected, haha. The ceremony was held at a local park that we would visit often, and the setting could not have been more perfect. The giving of my engagement ring was similar in nature, haha. Ashton waited until 2 hours before I would have to take him to the ship that was leaving on a 7-month-long deployment to give me the most beautiful ring I have ever seen. I couldn't be upset at him for yet again waiting until the very last minute to do something, because I have learned that he has made all of that waiting worth it every time :)