Fate and happy hour brought us together on Cinco de Mayo 6 years ago in Manhattan. We met through some work friends that day over tacos and margaritas at a Mexican spot in China Town. As time went on, we got along extremely well and spent the majority of our days talking, connecting, and exploring New York City together. We quickly realized we both love the outdoors, taking road trips and overall going on adventures and exploring different places together, so a couple of months after meeting, we took our first road trip to the tip of Long Island to visit the Montauk Point Lighthouse and it quickly became one of our favorite spots to escape to in NY. The more we talked and shared our life experiences with each other, the more we realized how connected we were. Like when we were both in the Army, we were both deployed to Iraq and were stationed in the same province/base at the same time, and it just felt so surreal knowing we have crossed paths before without realizing it. We became full-fledged friends within a couple of months and started dating in December that year and have been inseparable ever since.

On the third anniversary of when we first started dating, we went back to our favorite spot in Montauk by the lighthouse. Since then, we had already taken multiple road trips throughout the Northeast and relocated to our first apartment in Albany, NY the previous year. It was during the pandemic and since we'd been in quarantine for the majority of the year, we decided to take another trip to our favorite spot to the Montauk Lighthouse, which was about a 6 hour drive from our home at the time. It was a cold and gloomy Fall afternoon, but once we got there we were taken aback by the breathtaking scenery. We took a small hike along the lighthouse on the rocky shoreline to get a better view of the Atlantic Ocean. As we sat on one of the rocks to take a short rest and enjoy the view of the crashing waves, Juan got on one knee and popped the question! Some months after the proposal, we decided to start exploring places to plant our roots and took multiple road trips around the country to include Colorado, Texas and all the states in between, until we finally settled in Tallahassee, FL. After almost three years of delaying, we're so excited to celebrate this next chapter in our lives with you all in October!