We first met on September 15th, 2022 at a Church Institute class through mutual friends. Following the Institute class, we went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream. We saw each other a few more times through our mutual friends in September and October of 2022. We didn’t see each other again until September 24th, 2023. Over the summer, whilst I was back in England, Austin had switched from attending the 10:30am church meeting to the same 1pm Young Single Adults church meeting that I did. After arriving at church, I turned the corner to walk into the chapel and saw Austin standing up against the wall talking to a friend. We both instantly made eye contact and both smiled and everything else melted away. It felt like one of those magical moments you only see in the movies. I walked up and we started talking, sharing how we had been and begun talking about college football, such as last night’s Baylor game and staying up until 1am the week before to watch Colorado Buffaloes football. We sat next to each other during church and the playful conversation continued through the group meal after church. After the meal, Austin pulled me aside and asked me out. We messaged all week and our first date was watching General Conference with his family and dinner at Sonic. Despite spending all day together, neither of us wanted the moment to end. We ended the night by watching college football together, during which Austin asked to make us official.

I knew I wanted to propose to Darcey at the beginning of 2024. Everything felt right and so perfect and she was someone I knew I couldn’t live without. Thinking about when and where to propose did not come as easy I thought, until the Big 12 released its 2024 football schedule. We saw that Baylor would be playing on the road at Colorado on the weekend that would be around our one year anniversary of dating. Funny enough when we re-connected one of our first conversations was about Deion Sanders and Colorado football and how cool it would be to watch them play Baylor. It seemed like the stars were all aligning. Darcey had also always mentioned how much she loved Colorado when she visited the US when she was younger. She mentioned how beautiful the mountains were and would love to go back. I was also born in Colorado so then I knew that this is where I wanted to go and propose. We bought tickets to go to the football game and then the planning began on where I was going to propose. I was not too familiar with the area so it took quite a bit of research as to where. In August, a month before I proposed I was looking around on Google Maps and was searching the foothills of the Rocky Mountains not too far from where we be staying at and found this place called Eagle’s Eye Shelter, a balcony off a log cabin looking over the Rocky Mountain foothills. I looked at some of the images that showed the view and instantly knew this was the place. The morning of September 20, 2024 came and there were some slight nerves knowing that today was going to be the day. We got to our hotel that afternoon and got ready to go out and the task of finding out where to hide the ring was a bit difficult. I didn’t want to put it in my pocket because the box would’ve made it to obvious that I had something. So I grabbed my backpack and slipped it in while Darcey wasn’t watching and off we went. I turned on a playlist playing all of our favorite love songs while we drove through the foothills on our way to the place. When we arrived it such a perfect scene, we were the only people in sight, and absolutely perfect weather wise. I couldn’t have asked for a better day! We got to the spot and the nerves slipped away as I began the recording on my phone and pulled the ring from my backpack. I told Darcey how much I loved her and how every September has had big moments in our lives, we met in September and began dating in September and it only seemed fitting that we get engaged in September. I’m so lucky to have Darcey in my life. She is so perfect in every way and I am so excited for our lives together!