John and I met almost a decade ago in 2016. We were both underclassmen in high school and had no idea what we wanted for the future. Neither of us had any idea that we had already met our lifelong partners. Between speech and debate, tennis, and band, there were many long bus trips and tournaments around Wyoming that John and I took together. There wasn't much to look at other than sagebrush, so those long bus trips would be filled with classic high school games like "truth or dare" and "never have I ever". Over the miles of empty, snow covered roads, we found out that we had a lot in common with each other. After that, the rest is history.

I had spent months selecting a ring, but the final orchestration of the proposal came together right before my flight back to Maryland. I was departing from Salt Lake City, so I took the opportunity to book a nice (but admittedly more hipster-y than we expected) hotel and dinner the evening before my flight. Operating on some expert advice from the hotel staff and photography services from my friend Tanner, I rallied an unsuspecting Sasha to the beautiful City Creek Park. My cover was (almost) blown when we arrived to see a suspicious number of wedding/engagement photoshoots, but I remained steadfast in my plan. After a stroll down the trails, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me-- and she said Yes!