Raleigh, North Carolina is where our story started! Lauren moved here after successfully graduating from Liberty University to start her career as a pediatric nurse. After Lauren spent a few years settling in to the south, Evan made a spontaneous and completely out-of-character move from Charlotte to Raleigh. Unlike Lauren, he moved before having a job set up and spent the first few months settling in and searching for what's next. Once he was more established, we met on the dating app Hinge (Evan messaged first hehe). A week of sharing a few messages a day led to our first date at Mulino's Italian restaurant. The initial hesitancy of meeting someone new in-person quickly melted away and we were talking pretty comfortably before even arriving at the restaurant, followed by hours of talking and laughing together! Not wanting our night to end, we went to a wine bar afterward and stayed well after closing time, enjoying the chance to learn more about someone it had felt like we'd already known forever. That night ended with a hug (no kiss, that took about 5 more dates for Evan to muster up the courage, sorry Laur lol) and a feeling that things were never going to be the same ever again. Our next date was just two days later and making a point to spend time with each other as much as possible before we became an "official" couple in May 2024. Months of laughing, meeting family, and repeating the phrase, "it's just so easy with you!" led to the easiest decision Evan has ever made: asking Lauren to marry him in June of 2025. To us, this was nothing more than making official what we had known was right from that very first moment we met.