As life has become increasingly unpredictable over the past few months one thing has remained stable, our love and commitment to each other. While we were planning on having a big celebration of our love the current COVID19 Pandemic has made it nearly impossible to continue with our original wedding celebration. Along with our concern for the safety and health of our friends and loved ones, we have experienced personal loss in our family that has reminded us how important it is to cherish the moments we have with those we love while they are still with us on this earth. With that being said we have made the decision to move our wedding to May 23, 2020. We will be live streaming the wedding to include as many of our family and friends as possible.

((Her Perspective)) Being a single mom in grad school left little to no time to "go out and meet people" like many young adults do, so I turned to modern day dating to try to find someone to spend time with. I wasn't looking for anything serious, I just wanted someone to have adult conversation with on nights the kiddo was with her dad and I wasn't drowning in homework. I did what any milennial would do and turned to the online dating world. His smile was infectious. He said he was an artist. I was intrigued. *Swipes Right* "Um Hi. You're adorable" The first message I sent him. We spent some time getting to know each other as we text for the next few days. We both were busy - him starting a magazine and me at the end of my masters program - but we spent as much time together as we could. Often that was our Saturday morning breakfast, talking about anything and everything. He was different. He let me be independent, encouraged it. I knew right away that we had something special. He loved me in a way that made me more myself than I had ever been. I supported him and encouraged him to pursue his passions. He not only loved me where I was at, but also accepted and loved my daughter as his own. We grew - individually and together. Slowly, but what felt like all at once, we fell into a groove that just felt right. We had become a family.

I (Courtney) had made it very clear that marriage was on my mind. He was good at playing it off. We both knew we were at that stage where we wanted to take the next step. I thought it may never happen. He had teased me so many times I told him I wasn't going to believe it when it happened. I definitely didn't. We were visiting our best friends in NYC for Payton's birthday. I was told we were going to do a fashion photoshoot in Times Square "for Payton" so when they had me pose with Jake for a few touristy snapshots I was not at all expecting him to get down on one knee and ask me to marry him. I was in disbelief as evidenced by my "SHUT UP" and "Are you kidding me?!" captured on video by my BFF who had been in on the surprise for about 12 hours. I was truly and completely surprised and elated. It couldn't have been more perfect.