Come celebrate with us

Heath and I met at Glynn Academy (Go Terrors!). While had the same circle of friends, we never got to know each other on a deep level. 4 years flew by, we graduated and took off for college - Heath to Lipscomb, and me to GCSU (then to CCGA, but that’s a longer story). We lived in different cities, made new friends, all the while still keeping up with each other on social media. It wasn’t until Heath was home a few years later when we saw each other again while I was working at Wake Up Coffee. We caught up, I served Heath his favorite, black Americano, and he went on to his coffee date. It went on like this for years, but one day Heath posted on his Instagram story a rad pair of 90’s-inspired shoes, which he later told me the print is called “solo jazz”, so now I’m an expert. Anyway, something came over me, and I boldly swiped up to reply to his story as if it were personally sent to me. Guess what I said. I cringe every time I think about it. I said, “Cool shoes! Total Doug vibes.” (Yikes.) Heath was a good sport about it and sent me a link to purchase the shoes, which I did not. I guess I just wanted an excuse to talk to him. This conversation never ended! If you know Heath, you know how quippy and intelligent he is. We began video calling and agreed to meet up in person. At this point, I had NEVER been properly asked on a date. Heath called me, made a reservation at Basil, and told me he would pick me up at 6:45 - I was so nervous! We had an AMAZING time and still frequent Basil to this day to reminisce on this sweet time that began our relationship. It’s been a crazy road to get here but I am so grateful for how God put Heath in my life. I truly thought I didn’t need anyone as a companion, but I was so wrong. Heath compliments my personality, encourages me every day, and loves me in a way I have never experienced in another person. Thank you all for being a part of my and Heath’s lives. I am so excited for all of you to celebrate with us!! Let’s do this thing!

Our story together is kinda funny, because we’ve been around each other ever since I moved to Georgia, but neither of us truly connected until we were in college over 500 miles away from each other. Both in middle school and high school, we always had the same mutual friends. I just always felt super awkward around Haleigh, both because I had zero social skills, but also because I thought she was super cute. Heck, we even ate lunch together at Golden Corral after high school graduation, and I STILL never said anything to her. Contrary to what I believed at the time, that surely wouldn’t be the last time I saw Haleigh. During my college years in Nashville, TN, I spent half my freshman year trying to salvage a toxic and detrimental relationship while I spent the next two years desperately trying to seek out a relationship in fear of being single forever. After an unsuccessful try at Tinder, I simply threw in the towel and told myself to stop forcing it. “If it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen”, I told myself. Then, one seemingly uneventful night in my dorm room, I got an instagram notification: “haleighhw replied to your story”, it read. I opened it and saw that Haleigh had replied to a story of mine about a squirrel I had seen on campus. Over the next couple weeks, we’d reply to each other's stories every now and again. However, one day I posted on my story about these new shoes I had just bought. They had that old school Solo cup pattern on it (called “Jazz”. If you know me, you know what I’m talking about). Haleigh saw it, replied to it, and sent me the now infamous message that said something like, “Wow, I love these. Total Doug vibez”. And after that conversation started, we literally never stopped messaging each other after that. “Total Doug vibez” is what sparked our 2+ years of happiness and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Obviously there’s a lot more to the story (dating, long distance, etc.), but sadly this website has a character limit. So, I guess I'