We've waited 878 Days For This!

Shannen and Gabrielle met online May 1st, 2017 and for Shannen it was love at first sight. Despite harboring a crush for nearly a year, when Gabrielle asked Shannen to be hers it took Shannen a couple weeks to realize they were a couple. What a couple of weirdos!

The plan was sunrise on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but a ditch would do. Climbing up the mountains at 20 MPH, along switchbacks in the misty morning of January 17th, 2020, Gabrielle couldn't find the road to the lookout point because it was closed for the winter. "Baby, it's okay," Shannen assured her, hand on knee, voice as calm as the morning outside the car. The sun was rising and it was all going so horribly wrong. As they do everything, Shannen and Gabrielle found a perfect place together, a private lookout point off the mountain road where only a car, a blanket, a camera bag, and two shivering bodies could comfortably fit. Shannen knew before opening the first page of the photobook Gabrielle had made what would be on the last. "Will you marry me?" Shannen said yes!

Before the ditch, before rings were bought--before they were even properly together--there was a song Shannen said Gabrielle should listen to. Taylor Swift's "New Years Day" became their song and their day--glitter on the floor after the party, girls carrying their shoes in the lobby, candle wax and polaroids on hardwoods floors; you and me forevermore. Originally, Gabrielle planned to use this song to propose to Shannen beneath the stairs of Greenwoods's lounge--the site of their first date, when Shannen got wine drunk, Gabrielle put on makeup and they flirted through FaceTime thousands of miles apart. After the ditch got the job done, Shannen decided to straight-up thieve (!!!) G's idea and planned a surprise proposal that hinged upon her love for a drag queen. Gabrielle, notorious for wearing very little make-up and for spending lockdown without a bra or much clothing on at all really, would only get dressed up for one thing: a drag queen who had made a wedding enquiry with Shannen a few weeks back. Hearing that the Queen would be at the hotel, Gabrielle raced from the bath, painted her face and drove to The Woods to meet royalty. When she arrived, completely none-the-wiser, Gabrielle was met with Shannen standing in the lounge beneath the stairs, their song on the speakers, their photos covering the table, a question on Shannen's lips, a ring in Shannen's pocket. She said yes--she could have said no, she frequently reminds Shannen to this day--but she happily said yes.