In the Fall of 2019, I attended an SMU Boulevard pregame for the Tulsa home football game. I knew every single person at the party except one -Keaten. I kept eyeing him, and finally, we were introduced. We hung out for a bit, but he mysteriously disappeared. After he left the party, I could not stop talking about him. One of my friends decided to text Keaten on my behalf and the next day Keaten asked me out! Our first date was October 8, 2019 at Café Madrid, a local Tapas restaurant in Dallas. The date lasted many hours. We discovered we had multiple mutual friends from college, as we had both graduated from SMU in 2017! One of my bridesmaids even lived next door to him freshman year. We learned that both of our families had names starting with the same initial (my family has all C names, Keaten's all K names). We also realized we share a passion for playing/watching sports and bonded over our love of travel and the beach. Over the next few months we had so much fun dating. We went to Six Flags twice, saw a few concerts, and went ice skating. By the time March 2020 rolled around we knew what we had was special. I am so lucky to be marrying my best friend and cannot wait to celebrate our marriage with our friends and family!

I took Catherine to a nice little tapas place in the Uptown area called Café Madrid for our first date. We both have fond memories of that first night - it was one that started with an awkward hug and then four hours later ended with plans to visit Six Flags the next week. We had never gone back to this place, and when brainstorming where I wanted to propose to Catherine, it was this place I could not get out of my head. Catherine is a smart cookie, so in an attempt to throw her off the scent, I booked a reservation at a french restaurant across the street called La Biblioquet. This worked well, as Catherine had been talking about wanting to visit and had no time to develop suspicions of what was about to happen. When we arrived at the restaurant, the hostess (and actress for one night) was 'confused' when she could not find our reservation. After speaking with the manager she informed us that they were fully booked for the night and we unfortunately could not eat (even though there were several open tables...). Defeated, I looked across the street and asked Catherine if she would like to go to Café Madrid instead. We walked in and asked for a table for two, where they just "happened" to sit us down at the same table in the corner of the restaurant where we had sat two years before. I could see Catherine tense up as she started to realize something was happening. For the next hour, Catherine could barely speak and I could barely eat (and if you know either of us, you would know this is quite unusual). After dinner, we took a walk down the street before stopping by a quiet fountain area where I got on one knee and proposed to Catherine. I gave her a speech before putting the ring on her finger...one in which she did not remember a word out of sheer excitement. The completely unplanned cherry on top was a waiter at a nearby restaurant saw the whole thing happen, and graciously brought out a bottle of Champagne for the two of us to share. We then spent the rest of the evening in the Deep Ellum area enjoying each other’s company for the night before telling our friends and family the next morning.