We met in New Hire Orientation for my first “big girl job”. I was the only intern amongst a class of 12 new hires. He had been an intern with the company three times but was now starting full time post grad. We were both LA bound! Except he was headed to New Orleans, Louisana, and I was headed to the City of Angels to call Los Angeles my home for the next 6 months. Expecting to never see each other again, we kept in touch in true millineal fashion, sending each other gym snap chats and pictures of food.

Corey breezed through town the summer I interned in Houston on his move from the Big Easy to BFE, otherwise known as Dumas, TX. He hit up an old friend for drinks with some past coworkers as part of the first stop on his 3 day drive, and the rest was history. We’ve been hooked on each other ever since.

On the formal night of our cruise to the Mexican Reviera, Corey gave me the most beautiful handmade scrapbook, capturing every month we’d been together. He got down on one knee as I read the last page aloud to our dinner table that said “At Sea Will You Marry Me”. Of course I said yes, Yes, YES! One of our table mates was in on it, and she filmed the whole thing!

January 5th, 2015 was no ordinary day. No, this day was orientation day for my first professional, full-time job after college. I was both nervous and excited to start. We were all assigned seats in the make-shift training room, crammed in like sardines in what the company called the ping-pong room, used for casual games of table tennis during non-orientation weeks. Luckily there were only 12 of us in the class. After all of us sat down and filled out our paperwork, we started orientation with an “Ice Breaker!!”, two truths and a lie. Nearly everyone in the class had a boring turn in the spotlight, or maybe they just weren’t as memorable as Victoria and mine were to me. I kept thinking I wanted to not be boring like the 3 people before me. I thought of something interesting I had done a couple times which was wrangle gators. That fact definitely made it easy for people to remember me. Her “fun truth” was that she fox hunted. I instantly was intrigued. She then explained what fox hunting was in a very twangy accent. The accent just came out of no where too. There were a few things I took away from meeting Victoria; one, I could recognize her laugh and voice from nearly a mile away; and two, I thought I learned what fox hunting was that day... Boy was I wrong.

The summer of 2016 I made the biggest move of my life, from New Orleans to a small town in the panhandle of Texas called Dumas. My brother and I embarked on this journey together 4th of July weekend. Victoria was a work colleague who loved people and socializing as much as I did. I invited her and a few others out for a drink to meet Treay and show him a good time while we were passing through Houston night 1 of the 3 day drive. That evening she and I hit it off talking about anything and everything as we enjoyed a night of drinking and, of course, dancing! After closing down the bars, we all went to Jose’s place for late night food. Victoria and I were having such a great time that even long after everyone left to find sleep, we talked and laughed for hours on Jose’s couch. I may have gotten only a few hours of sleep that night, but I loved every second of it.

The proposal was one of the greatest days of my life! That one moment took months of planning, a few long nights, and many phone calls with my mother and future mother-in-law. It all started with getting Victoria the perfect ring. I still have the note in my phone of what she said when I asked her about her ideal ring. It reads, “gold ring with a big rock.” I thought that narrowed it down...but I was mistaken. Months later, Victoria and I had a trip planned to cruise down the pacific coast of Mexico, and I knew I wanted to propose then. But I wanted a perfect proposal because she is my forever date! I bought a leather bound scrapbook to display all of our trips we have had over the past couple years. As a long distance couple, we have photos documenting each time we traveled to see each other. This took some time, but I would smile and get more excited with every page I filled. I kept in contact with Momma Jacks and discussed my plan with her, determining what night of the cruise and when I should propose. Then came the cruise, where all of the planning, long nights, and countless phone calls were going to be worth it. Day 2 was formal night, the night I had waited for! I put everything in a pink gift bag and told Victoria it was her belated birthday present since Victoria’s birthday was a week before the cruise. After dinner, Victoria opened her gift with everyone at the table watching. She flipped through the book, explaining the experience that was on each page to the entire table, until she got to the page when we were in Charleston for 4th of July (where I met her Granny for the first time and asked her father for her hand in marriage), and I said, “Champagne is used in celebration, and we were drinking champagne to celebrate the question I asked your dad.” She suddenly realized this wasn’t just a birthday gift at all, but it was much more. As she turned the page, I got down on one knee as she read the page where it said, “At sea, Will you marry me?”