Es con mucha alegría que le invitamos a celebrar la boda de

Borden Building, Fred Fletcher Park 820 Clay St. Raleigh, NC 27605

We first encountered each other through social media at the end of 2019. Every now and then we shared with each other our favorite movies, artwork, and music. Although we didn’t speak often, our interactions always felt exciting. At the start of 2022, one of our regular conversations about music snowballed into months of us getting to know each other more personally, and soon enough, we realized there was no one else we would rather spend time with than each other. We first met face to face in the city of Asheville when we attended a Beach House concert together, and everything we already thought and felt about one another was confirmed. After that weekend, we started dating right away!

Just as the relationship itself was created from a distance, the proposal too had to be planned from a distance. Both our families had planned to take a short vacation in Nashville, a city in which neither of us had stepped foot in, and where the proposal needed to take place. After Centennial Park in Nashville was chosen as the location, intense research was made, through studying every google street view in the area as well as watching hours of visitor video footage, all to gain complete spacial awareness of an area that I could not see with my own eyes until the day I popped the question. With both our families sleeping in the same Airbnb, and relying on Leslie’s difficulty with waking up early, I had asked her parents to wake up early the morning of the proposal so that I could “ask them a question”, hoping Leslie would still be asleep. Although I took into account her hatred for mornings, I had forgotten the possibility of Leslie being woken up by the need to use the bathroom. Which is exactly what happened. Fortunately, however, through her morning grogginess she did not notice the conversation taking place in the next room that would later change both of our lives, and she promptly walked back to her room and back to sleep. That day, everything was working against us. The ring only just arrived right before the trip, some family weren’t able to make it, the long distance relationship made it so that I had to ask for her parents blessing the day of the proposal, Leslie woke up early and almost spoiled the surprise, it was raining on and off when we got to the park, I had never been in the park and had to improvise where to go, and some brothers doing metropolitan witnessing caught us in conversation right before the proposal and stalled our time. But, miraculously, despite it all, when the weather briefly cleared up, Leslie was completely oblivious to any of the planning that took place before I got down on one knee with a ring in my hand and spoke the same words I told her when I first confessed my feelings for her: “You know I have a massive crush on you right?” -J I was convinced that when the time came, I would not be oblivious to the signs of an upcoming proposal. It was a moment we had discussed often and although I knew it was going to happen eventually, I had absolutely no idea it was going to happen on THAT day. Justin was his normal self, talkative and affectionate. He gave away no clues. As we approached the bridge at Centennial Park, it crossed my mind for the first time. “Oh, this would be a nice place to propose……….Wait!” But my suspicion left my mind just as soon as it had entered it. For weeks, Justin had been mentioning here and there that he still didn’t know what kind of ring he was going to purchase. A few important family members weren’t present. It seemed highly improbable. Just as I had discarded my suspicions, he turned to me and the look on his face told me everything. I said yes and allowed myself to cry the happiest tears. -L