We are grateful for the love and support from each of you and can't wait for our big day with all our favorite people! Let's celebrate!

Brianna woke up on Saturday, February 6, 2021 to a very long text from her friend Elizabeth Henry about a guy she wanted to set her up with and many convincing details about how wonderful he was. On that day, Blake was in a bike race with Jackson Henry and in between legs of the race, he caught up with Elizabeth and shared all about what was going on and his ponderings on life. He tossed in the comment of, "so I'm single and if you know anyone... feel free to send them my way." Elizabeth replied, "yeah, I already text her." Brianna gave Elizabeth the okay to give Blake her number and a couple of days later he reached out. From there, texts turned into phone calls and phone calls turned into very long FaceTimes learning all about one another. Blake came up to Waco from Houston on February 27 for their first date and against all odds (two flat tires on the boat trailer and other wild things) they had a wonderful time together. Long distance was the first scary thing about moving forward in their relationship, but they both quickly figured out it was beyond worth it to be together.

Blake's plan: I wanted our proposal to be special. A mountain-top experience, if you will. We talked about different ways we could do a mutual proposal, but decided that it was too complicated to try to figure out how to surprise each other at the same time so we resolved just to plan our own separate proposals. I had identified the extra day we’d have in Alaska together as a possibility months before. As our trip drew nearer and I was able to wrap up the process of getting her ring made, I made a plan to, with the help of our Alaskan hiking expert friends Jackie and John Minge, pick an Alaskan peak on which to propose! We asked Jackie to recommend a hike that would have a good view and was “challenging but not too challenging.” Even though we now know that we have a slightly different definition of “challenging” than Jackie, she nailed it. As we began to ascend the beautiful Mchugh Peak, Brianna pulled out a letter from my Dad telling me all about how excited he was for us and our future together. I knew I had been duped. Matthew, our photographer, the Minges, and my parents had been in on it the whole time! Surprising each other at the same time was not all that complicated after all :). I read each of the lovely letters from our lovely family members as we hiked and Brianna grew less and less confident that I would propose. At the top, though, we both did, and I will never forget it. I said, “Will you marry me?” She said, “Yes,” and I said “That’s good.” And it is :). Brianna's plan: Given our mutual commitment to keeping things equal in our relationship, I talked to Blake about how I wanted to propose sometime just like I knew he wanted to at some point. As we planned for our trip to Alaska, I started dreaming about how that could be the perfect place. As the time inched closer, I sneakily asked my parents, his parents, Matthew, Jackson, and Elizabeth to write letters to him for us to read along the way on the hike we had planned. Blake went up a few days earlier than me to bikepack with Matthew, and I came in the night before our hike. Turns out, our hike up McHugh Peak needed those breaks along the way for us to read the letters! (I was very tired, haha) So even from the first letter I gave him to read, he knew what was going on. However, it wasn't until we made it to the top that he finally gave it away that he was proposing too. We read each other our own letters to each other and cried and had really beautiful moments of proposing to each other. (And thanks to Matthew, who kept the secrets from us and documented it all with wonderful pictures!) We came back to our amazing friends' house, The Minges, where they were waiting with champagne and cake for us. And then we left the next day to train camp counselors and be co-speakers at camp :) A big week!