Our story began on a cruise ship sailing out of Italy. AJ met my brother and cousins on the first day at sea, and not surprisingly, they decided to set up a drinking game made out of pool chairs. After some convincing from my family, I decided to head up to the top deck and see what was going on. A few minutes went by and it was time for the boys to refill their drinks, which finally brought AJ over to where I was sitting. Eventually, everyone went up to the bar besides AJ and I, and despite what he may say, I initiated our conversation. Cameron had already told me that AJ was a Clemson student and also an Agriculture major, so I knew we had some common interests. It didn't take long for us to realize that we immediately clicked and knew we had to keep getting to know one another. From that day forward, any down time we had on the ship was spent with each other. As we had mini dates throughout the cruise, we both started to feel like we met for a bigger reason and not just by chance. As much as everyone wanted to get off the boat after 10 days, we didn't want to go back to our lives without each other. Before leaving, AJ and I got dressed up and had a nice dinner together, where he made it clear he was going to come to California to see me before the summer was over. We called, texted, and facetimed as much as we could until he came to Fresno for the first time in July 2023. As time went on and we fell even more for each other, we didn't want to do long distance for longer than we had to. On February 1st, 2024 I packed up my things and moved from Fresno, CA to Clemson, SC to be with AJ while he finishes school, and I've continued to fall more in love with him every day.

About a couple of weeks before the proposal Kelly and John invited us to dinner at one of their previous homes, which was not an unusual request since we spend most weekends doing something with the McRoberts. Kelly told us this would be a nice night to get dressed up, which also didn't raise any flags for a potential proposal since we're always looking for things to dress nice for. Throughout the planning, my coworkers were AJ's spies trying to figure out what kind of ring I wanted, and in the weeks leading up to the proposal, kept encouraging me to wear the white dress I had in mind. AJ knew the only thing I wanted in a proposal was to be able to celebrate with my family afterwards, but we all share locations and I constantly spy on them so I didn't think it'd be possible to get them to Clemson without me finding out. On the Thursday before the proposal, my dad told me they would be going out of town over the weekend to a family friends house up in the hills, so they will not have service and would talk to me when they got back. That raised a flag because I've been to that family friend's house and you definitely have service. I still brushed it off and didn't think about it again until the day of the proposal. Saturday May 24th comes, and AJ had planned my perfect day. We woke up and went to the South Carolina Botanical Gardens where I got to feed the turtles, and walked around for a bit. As we were getting ready for "dinner" I made another comment to AJ that I thought it was weird I haven't been able to see anyone's location since Friday night, but he smoothly deflected it again. When we arrived at the house for "dinner", Peyton lead us down to the dock to take some pictures together on the water before heading inside. As AJ and I finished taking our last picture, he tells me we're not actually there to have dinner. At that moment, our friend and photographer pops out from a boat on the dock with his camera and that's when AJ got down on one knee. After tons of happy tears from all of us and more pictures, we then left to a restaurant where all of our family and friends from the area were waiting for us. The final surprise AJ put together was successfully getting my family to Clemson without me figuring it out because my parents, Cameron, and Amanda were also waiting for us at the restaurant. It was truly the most perfect day and proposal, and we were both overjoyed with the love and support we received from everyone who was apart of it.