We had crossed paths a few times, with several mutual friends, but first really got to go know each other during the ride back from a Spring Break campus ministry trip known as Isle of Cru. Anna and Matthew had actually not hung out much during the trip: Anna was in charge of all of the food for 100+ people, so she was fairly busy with that, and Matthew had successfully avoided any responsibility and spent most of the time playing football on the beach. However, due to some car shuffling they wound up riding home together. Their first conversation centered around a favorite book series they both enjoyed, and took off from there. Anna promised to someday bake Matt her famous killer brownies.…which she then did the very next week. Thus began their friendship, with many days spent studying together, which turned into many texts sent to each other over the summer. Will, Matt’s dad, knew something was up when he saw hundreds of texts to a 304 number he didn’t recognize, but he let us keep playing it cool. We finally made it official in October, 2010, in the most Matthew and Anna way - while traveling out of town to watch Duke play Navy in football.

Since then: - 8+ years together - 8 states lived in: NC, TX, DC, FL, SC, IN, PA, WV - 10 more states visited: CO, MI, MD, VA, OH, TN, AL, LA, GA, IL, (plus quick stopovers in MS and AR) - Nearly 60 flights and long drives to see each other

Matthew proposed in a series of wonderful surprises. First, he took Anna to go behind the scenes at an aquarium and spend some quality time with otters, her favorite animal. Then, they had a lovely dinner at Tony’s - a Houston institution. Anna had some suspicions a proposal was coming, but when Matthew didn’t propose at dinner, she figured she was wrong about it happening that night. Afterwards, they went to “meet friends for drinks” at an uptown location. Matthew had scoped out a beautifully lit walkway, used some misdirection to lead her down it, he got down on one knee and proposed. There was one more surprise left: Matthew had arranged for Anna’s family and friends to meet them out to celebrate afterwards.