We first met by coincidence before the first week of freshman year at Purdue in 2014. We were both with groups of people that didn't end up sticking as friendships but some others in our respective groups started chatting. Eventually, everyone requested to exchange numbers. Of course both of us, ever the private introverts, did not initiate in exchanging information with each other so we regrettably didn't get each other's numbers. A few months later, Luis had a pretty established group of friends (some of whom will be at our wedding) and Jacq made friends with someone from this group by chance in her pre-med classes. Jacq kept showing up to the friend group's hangouts and the timeline is murky but at some point Jacq and Luis went on their first solo mission to make Halloween costumes together. This was the start of Jacq and Luis. We denied being in love for months but spent every single day together "as friends" until we couldn't keep it a secret from ourselves. Since then we have done 4 years of long distance, lived in 4 states and 5 cities, visited 7 National Parks, traveled to 6 countries, and we're up 2 perfect kitties!

Luis planned the perfect proposal! We had a busy few months as camping season was coming to an end and we hadn't had any solo trips together that season. Luis laid the groundwork for his plan early by continuing to mention that he wanted to camp together before the season ended. With the seeds planted early, Luis waited for the perfect weekend weather to suggest we go to Olympic National Park and camp along the beach by Hole in the Wall. We had been there once before when we first moved to Seattle so it was a special spot and Jacq agreed with the "last minute" plans and Luis offered to pack and organize our supplies. The kind gesture was not out of the ordinary so Jacq suspected nothing out of the ordinary. Luis was worried the whole time that Jacq suspected but she was blissfully ignorant to the surprise to come even when Luis had to continually intervene at the trail head to keep Jacq from digging around in our supplies. We hiked to the end of the beach to Split Rock and Hole in the Wall and luckily we got the best spot on the beach that we were hoping for. Our tent was above the beach and was right in front of Split Rock with a view of Hole in the Wall so the view was unmatched. We set out to explore and Luis left Jacq to continue exploring the tide pools to set up his tripod for a sunset picture. This was completely normal behavior for Luis so, again, Jacq had no idea anything was out of the norm. Jacq continued exploring when Luis made his way back to Jacq to stand in the photo. Jacq remembers saying something along the lines of it being cute that we were in the frame of the picture but she assumed they would get out of the way of the sunset picture after a moment. While they were looking at the stunning sunset, Luis said something sweet and Jacq agreed, then he said another nice sentiment and Jacq agreed again, then again, but by the fourth sentiment Jacq finally thought that it sounded like a speech! Shock took over and Luis finished his speech, got down on one knee (that got cut from the sharp rocks), and proposed! We spent the rest of the evening and weekend in complete excitement dreaming about our wedding plans. We had the rest of the weekend totally by ourselves since we had no cellphone service and we got to really soak in the moment together! It was the perfect weekend!