We're Getting Married !

Freece and I technically met on two separate occasions, though he only recalls one. However, I remember that initial encounter very vividly. The first time we met was at a 4th of July fireworks show held at his high school’s football stadium. We were only 15 and 16 years old at the time. He was part of the football team, and they were outside raising donations for the upcoming season. I don't remember what they were selling; I only remember Freece's face. I didn’t even know his name, but I remembered the jersey number he wore and figured I would see him again at some point. A couple of weeks later, my friends and I returned to the same stadium to attend the annual East vs. West football game at his school. I again noticed football players from that school wearing their jerseys and spotted Freece. Eventually, he noticed me as well, but both of us being stubborn, we refused to approach each other. At some point during the evening, I noticed him talking to a mutual associate. After they finished their conversation, I called that guy over to ask him what Freece’s name was. I was curious but did not want to bring any attention to myself. Instead of just telling me Freece’s name, he made the interaction as awkward as possible by calling Freece over right then and there, telling him that I wanted to speak to him! I was completely caught off guard, initially acting clueless but in the end, it worked, and Freece finally approached me. From there we exchanged numbers and proceeded to plan our first date at the movies. We saw the movie Salt. That first date led to many other hangouts, and ultimately, us being attached at the hip. The rest is history.

We were right in the middle of quarantine during the 2020 pandemic. I was pregnant with our second son, Milo, and at that point, I was very much content with our little family and the idea of a courthouse wedding. I didn’t realize until he told me later that he had been waiting and planning to propose where we met back home.However, being in the midst of a global pandemic with no clear end in sight, he didn’t know when we would be able to travel from Michigan, where we were living, back to North Carolina to make it happen. Fast forward to Mother’s Day. Freece had gifted me a box of chocolates, secretly placing the ring of my dreams inside before giving them to me. He actually documented the entire process, which was hilarious to watch afterward. A week or so had gone by, and I still hadn’t opened the chocolates to eat any. He kept asking me when I was going to eat them, and I was honestly getting annoyed but kept politely declining. I was very pregnant and at the time not craving chocolate. Finally, after multiple attempts of him trying to get me to open the chocolates, I gave in—only because, this time, he insisted we should start a family YouTube channel, and our first video should be taste-testing the chocolates. It was very random and kind of weird to me at the time, but it was also quarantine (very strange times of extreme boredom), and that was my man, so I was going to stand beside him. 🤭 I didn’t realize this was a clever ploy to catch the proposal on camera without me catching on to the fact that something special was happening. I was completely shocked and couldn’t stop laughing at all the missed clues. It turns out he had been paying attention all along and proposed with the most beautiful ring I could ever ask for. I still get compliments on it almost everywhere I go! That’s only part of its beauty for me, though. I thought I lost my ring for real once, and I boo-hoo’d so badly at the thought of it being gone forever. Freece, of course, being the problem-solver that he is, promised to replace it, but what he didn’t understand was the value that ring held because of the moments created behind it—not the ring itself. That could not be replaced.