Our story starts on an app, as do so many love stories these days. I swiped right on his Bumble profile (mainly because of pictures of Hank as a tiny puppy, let's be real 😉), and sure enough it was a match. Conversations came easily from the start, and soon enough Tyler asked me out on a date. We were all set for Chivo on a Wednesday night in early April. I was so excited and felt really good about this date... until I didn't. All day on that Wednesday, I just didn't feel right. So, I came home from school and told Tyler I was taking a quick nap in hopes that it would help me feel better. I woke up with chills and a fever and whatever germs I had caught at school. I was forced to cancel. I was so scared he would think I was bailing and tried to make sure he knew I was really sick. (If you've heard this story from T's point of view, you know that he was sure I was bailing, so it's probably good I was panicked and worked so hard to convince him otherwise!) We rescheduled for Easter weekend which was the weekend of the Bristol Nascar race, so Tyler was driving back from Bristol Saturday morning to meet me for brunch at Tupelo Honey. We had a great time and didn't want the date to end so we took a walk around downtown. He gave me a nice side hug and was sure to make it real awkward when he said goodbye that day (he loves this part of the story). This would be the first of many dates that would last for hours on end because we didn't want the conversations to stop. I left the date and met my sister and brother-in-law and told them that Tyler was wonderful, but I was scared he was too nice for me. That I wasn't going to be good enough for him. Our second date we finally made it to Chivo and that was the night sealed the deal. We talked, we laughed, we joked around with each other. We explored downtown until it was late enough that the Tennessee Theatre sign turned off (in the middle of me trying to take a photo), and I knew that night that he was the one. A couple weeks later, we hosted my (now our) friends, Cara and Alex, for Cinco de Mayo. While the men were off in the other room, Cara asked me, "so, we like him?" to which I responded, "oh yes, we lo-- like him a lot!" He passed all of their questions and didn't bat an eye when Cara kept calling him my "boyfriend" (we hadn't quite had that conversation yet). They left and I turned to him and asked, "Can I call you my boyfriend?" And Cinco de Mayo gained a whole new significance for us that day. That July, after having gone to our first wedding together, we were discussing our future weddings (awkwardly talking about our *separate* future weddings), when I decided to be bold and tell him that I was going to marry him. He immediately concurred and that was that. Between that moment and the actual moment we got engaged, we went on countless adventures, discovered new places, frequented favorite places, and grew to know and love each other more every day. We grew to love the other's friends and families. The more we discovered about each other, the more we knew this was something special. Truly a gift from God. Fast forward to June 20, 2023... I knew the engagement was coming, but we were just supposed to be dining out at a fancy restaurant to celebrate my new position working with Cara. Sure enough, Cara and Alex were "running late", so we decided to stroll around downtown while we waited. We passed Tupelo Honey and talked about our first date, and then ended up following the same route we had gone that very first day. When he pulled me into the breezeway at the old city courthouse, I knew what was happening, and my heart burst. We danced to one of our favorite songs, he spun me, and I spun around to Tyler on one knee and a ring in his hand. We got to celebrate with our people that evening, and have continued to feel loved and celebrated every day since. We absolutely cannot wait to celebrate with all of you on our big day!