In the fall of 2018, Emma was with her roommates and one roommate's boyfriend discussing the plans for the first New Year's Eve they’d all spend together as new friends. When they decided on going down to Key West together, the two friends from Key West, Lexie and Adam, started thinking of who to set the other two roommates up with. They went back and forth but decided that Emma should be paired up with a guy named Jared, who turned out to be up at the Naval Academy and was unable to join the festivities that year.

Eventually two years had passed since Adam and Lexie initially tried to set up Emma and Jared. A few times they’d be in the same place at the same time, but without really meeting – up until June of 2020 rolled around. Emma and her roommates were meant to be studying abroad in Innsbruck, Austria and Jared was supposed to be completing a naval training on a ship off the coast of San Diego, CA. Instead of being 6,200 miles away from one another, Emma and Jared both ended up in Key West for the week that sparked it all. They stayed up until nearly 3am talking on the patio at Jared's house in Key Haven and both had a feeling this was meant to be something special.

After officially starting to date in April of 2021, Emma and Jared flew back and forth to see each other nearly 22 times over the course of two years. Even though the trips up to Annapolis, Maryland, were only about 40 hours together each time, it was always worth it. Jared and Emma supported each other from 800 miles away through the final semesters of college, Emma's cheering, Jared's military trainings, health issues, college graduation, moving to new cities to start new jobs, and career changes. In those two years of long distance, the couple traveled to many places -- Annapolis, Baltimore, Washington DC, Orlando, Deland, Key West, Fort Lauderdale, Merritt Island, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. No matter the location or reason, Emma and Jared always did what they could to spend quality time with one another. After a long two years of living apart, they closed the gap in April of 2023 when Jared moved in with Emma, Lexie, and Adam.

Jared and Emma moved into their own apartment in Orlando, FL over the summer of 2023 and quickly made the place their own. Since living together, they've gotten to travel to South Carolina, Mexico, Illinois, Texas, back to Maryland, and most importantly, Utah! Jared popped the question and proposed to Emma on November 23rd, 2024, in Deer Valley, Utah while on a trip with Jared's family. Emma responded with "absolutely!" and the couple celebrated with a bottle of wine that was bottled in 2020, the year they each met the person they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with.