When we met in February of 2022, Avery was in a relationship, while Blake was intensely focused on “professional development”. We were both working for the same company and at our first training event. Avery, being very organized, writes all her notes with colored pens and highlighters. Blake spent more time making fun of her then writing his own notes, but it created a friendly work relationship. Shortly after training, Avery broke up with her then-boyfriend and enjoyed the single life. It was a few months later when we saw each other again. We were sent to surgery alone for the first time ever - Avery was trapped in a corner and the entire surgery was filled with problems. Fortunately for us, the experience helped us grow our new friendship.
 In late June 2022, we attended another training session. At training, we went out as a group every night, and Blake discovered that Avery was single. After that, if Avery was driving, Blake was sitting in the passenger seat and sitting next to her at the table. He spent the week making fun of her music, gym routine, and the large quantity of pens, highlighters, and snacks in her backpack. While we all know that usually means the boy likes the girl, Avery missed all of the clues. Over those two weeks, we started spending more time together studying and hanging out, constantly making fun of each other and laughing. After training, we both headed to New England to celebrate our birthdays, where we talked non-stop. When we got home from our trips, we went to dinner at 2 Georges and then had drinks at Flanigan’s. Avery decided, as casual conversation on an early date, to inform Blake that she would never be getting married. You guessed it: he didn’t believe it. We left that night knowing we liked each other, but cautious about our work relationship. The next weekend, Avery was a bridesmaid at my cousin's wedding back up north. She spent most of her time texting Blake and we met again for lunch the Monday she returned. Since we were both living at home, we told our families we were getting lunch with a coworker - not a lie! Our lunch lasted over 4 hours, helping us to realize how much we were growing to like each other. After that we started to spend every weekend together.
 A few weeks later, Blake moved into an apartment and we spent every weekend together. For a year, Avery would drive almost an hour back and forth Friday through Sunday. In October 2022, we visited Jacksonville for the Florida-Georgia game. Avery thought, “Wow, I must love this man” because she was finally relaxing at 2pm on a weekday. We were in the moment, not worried about anything, and it was that weekend we knew we were in love. A week later, with Christmas decorations and lights (yes, Blake believes November is decorating time), we said we loved each other.
 We started to spend holidays, time with family and friends, and took some vacations together. At about seven months of dating, We took a spur-of-the-moment 36-hour trip to Nashville in January 2023. The main purpose of the trip was to see if we wanted to move to the area, but at the end, we both left feeling like we had a long future together ahead of us wherever it might be. On the plane ride home, Blake started showing Avery engagement rings, as a joke, but knowing one day he’d be buying one for her. She fell in love with the first ring he showed her, so he saved the screenshots and designed her actual engagement ring based on that. As life continued, we moved in together in June of 2023. Written by: Blake

Blake began seriously ring shopping in January of 2024, but consistently told Avery that he hadn’t looked, couldn’t remember her ring size, and would ask question after question pretending he didn’t know what type of ring she wanted. After asking her parents (and her siblings) for their blessing, Blake finally had the plan and the ring. She was getting her hair done on April 27th, which would be perfect since she wanted pictures of the proposal, her hair to be “done”, and our families all together to celebrate. After a drink and short walk on the beach, Blake got down on a knee and proposed. While she thought he was kidding and took a swing at the ring box, she eventually said yes. That brings us to April 25th, 2025… see you there!