The story of us meeting is not a "love at first sight" one. In fact, if any of you could have been witnesses to that day (and some of you were), I am fairly certain you would not have placed any bets on us being married one day. Nevertheless, we met in our freshman year at University of Florida (Go Gators!) at a freshman social event put on by Navigators, a campus ministry. Long story short, we found out that we lived in the same dorm building (shoutout to East Hall) and, truthfully, that was about it. We had the occasional head nod and awkward smile exchange on the sidewalk as we passed by each other, and once Kaley scared Garrett while wearing a ninja mask outside the dorm at midnight (a story for another time). But all in all, one could barely call us "acquaintances" over the next three years. Flash forward to Fall 2017... Three years, one public speaking class, and almost no other interaction later... Kaley and Garrett reconnected over the uber romantic topic of dark chocolate. This one random and spontaneous conversation turned into another, which turned into studying at Heavener Hall (UF's business school building for my non-gators), which eventually turned into our first date. I wish we could say we agreed on what our official first date was, but we still aren't really sure when hanging out as friends turned into something that meant a bit more, and perhaps that's part of the magic of it all. What we do know for sure is that on March 1, 2018 Garrett asked Kaley to be his girlfriend, and, I suppose this is where we say, the rest was history...

Garrett proposed to Kaley while on a Fennell family vacation in the Keys. On the second night, Garrett and Mrs. Fennell planned ruse to throw Kaley off of any suspicious activity throughout the day (although, Kaley was definitely still suspicious). The vacation crew arrived at Morada Bay around 7pm for a pre-dinner cocktail during sunset. The good news: the sunset was gearing up to be absolutely gorgeous. The bad news: Morada Bay and Pierre's Restaurant (which is where our 8pm reservations were) had a glitch with their system and were accepting cash only. Because the reservation was a surprise for Kaley, she was happy as a clam while the rest of the group did their best to maintain their freak out to a minor panic. As you can guess, we didn't have much cash on hand. Nevertheless, just before prime sunset hour, Kaley asked Garrett if he wanted to stroll around the beach outside of the restaurant. Little did she know she was setting him up for a slam dunk, as it was his plan to ask her the same. After talking about Kaley's childhood memories at that particular restaurant and after enjoying the view, Garrett decided it was time! He slyly navigated us into the most picturesque spot on the beach, which was luckily also more private. He got down on one knee, and said, "Will you marry me forever?" and, well, you guys know the rest! Right afterwards, Mr. and Mrs. Fennell and Hudson came running over, with Todd Jr., Emily, Todd |||, and Eli on FaceTime. They had a toast, took a lot of pictures, had dinner at Pierre's Restaurant, and didn't stop smiling the entire night!