We're Getting Married!

We met at Appalachian State University during our first few days as new students. We lived in the same building... Caroline was on the 2nd floor and Ian was on the 3rd. We were part of the same orientation group, and together with our roommates we began growing a friend group that would become our closest friends throughout college - and beyond! Some of our best memories include late nights eating Oreos and peanut butter, going out with our friends, going crazy for AppState football, and getting plugged into college with our friends. Our time at Appalachian State was truly the best.

It all started with a wedding... we attended a wedding together as friends before the summer of our freshman year (2012 - shout out to Kelly and Kyle Dodson!!), and by the time we left for the weekend Ian was (secretly) crushing. He tried to ignore it, not wanting to ruin our friendship, but in the end he couldn't ignore it any more. We spent our summers apart from one another, but in the Fall we picked up our friendship right where we had left it. After some coming-to-Jesus conversations, Caroline got Ian to confess his love, and eventually decided she would give it a shot. We learned that dating your best friend was exactly what we needed. Since then, God has blessed us with a love we are undeserving of... we simply cannot wait to spend the rest of our lives with our best friends: each other.

For Christmas last year (2016), Ian gave Caroline a trip to visit some of our great friends in the Asheville area. We went, we did the things we love to do in Asheville, and on that Saturday night, we had reservations to eat dinner at the Grove Park Inn as part of the Christmas gift; the weekend really seemed normal and sweet. Just before dinner, we went on a walk - one that was supposed to take 5 minutes but took 45 - and at the top of that hike, in our fancy dinner clothes, Ian got on his knee and just... did it. We laughed, Caroline thought it was a joke (anyone surprised?), and we laughed some more. After we took some photos with a photographer who knew about the whole thing, we made our way down the mountain and headed to the Grove Park. On the way, Ian had some of Caroline's closest friends write her letters that she could read in the car. And, once we got to the Grove Park, we were greeted by every member of our families and two glasses of Champagne. It was overwhelming for both of us and neither of us know how the secret never made its way to Caroline's ears!