Back in the spring of 2016, Michael and Marie had never officially met (well, about 5 times at various college parties that Michael doesn't remember, but we’ll save that for a different time). Coincidentally, they both went to Cancún at two resorts right next to each other for their senior year spring break. They were joined by some of their best college girlfriends and guy friends. Marie and her friends, being in a strange country on spring break, were relieved to find they had familiar faces right next door. The Monday of that trip, Michael and Marie spent the entire day running around the resort, playing volleyball in the ocean, and drinking way too many cervezas together. That day, Michael and Marie had so much fun and we’re so comfortable with each other, it felt like they had been friends for years. While they had those blissful couple of hours together on the beach, sadly for the rest of the week, Michael and Marie did not spend much more quality time together (Marie would later find out after several months of dating, that Michael was simply too chicken to strike up more conversations together because he got so nervous around her). Little did she know, Michael had told his best friend Tyler the same Monday night (while gazing at Marie across the beach bar in her beautiful white dress) that he knew he was "going to marry that girl someday". The next Monday, after coming back to classes (and reality), Marie got a Facebook message from Michael simply stating "Why can't we be back in Cancun?". The rest is history as Marie and Michael have been inseparable ever since. They both knew very early on that they were destined to spend the rest of their lives together.

On June 1st, 2019 at 5:30am, Michael dragged Marie out of bed to go hiking in the Shenandoah mountains. Marie recalls not feeling like this was anything unusual, as Michael was always the one getting them up to do outdoorsy things on the weekends. Also, in the past two months, he had organized a trip to the Outer Banks AND Charlottesville for them, so another weekend where he had planned something didnt raise any “Proposal Flags” to her. After an hour in the car and a couple medium iced coffees later, we arrived at the Shenandoah Mountains for our hike up Mary’s Rock. The hike was about 1.5 miles up, so very moderate, but it was fun to just be together and enjoy the beautiful morning. After about an hour up, we got to the overlook, which was absolutely stunning. When we reached the top there was a dirt landing that opened up to the entire valley and all the mountains around them. To our left there was a pile of rocks that would bring us up even further. As we started to climb the rocks, a couple that was sitting there was getting up to leave, so we had the whole top to ourselves (we must have smelled from the sweaty hike up). To get our “picture”, Michael balanced his phone on a high tree branch where if it had fallen we would've had serious problems. Marie calmly sat on the rock while Michael came over telling her the phone was on a 30 second timer (when it was actually taking a video). To distract her, Michael told Marie there was a dog in (fake) danger at the bottom of the rock. Marie quickly looked over to make sure the pup was ok and when she turned back around, Michael was on one knee (on a HARD rock, props to him) and said in the most elegant fashion, "Maryson, will you marry me?". We were at the top of Mary's Rock, in the Shenandoah mountains, when we made the best decision of our entire lives!