Zach and Karissa met at Grace University, where nothing happened for two and a half years. Then one fateful day Karissa walked into Zach's dorm room, where he was playing FIFA. She decided to join him, which began their long journey as friends. Throughout the rest of the school year, they began to spend more time together, from not getting homework done in the ARC to late night french fry runs to pub pizzas with friends--until she friend-zoned him. Hard. However, everyone knows that was not the end of the story. In the summer of 2018 they worked together at Camp Rivercrest. During this time Zach accepted being relegated to being in the friend-zone, while Karissa ignored the feelings that where beginning to arise. It was not until the end of the summer when they had the opportunity to sit down and openly discuss their feelings for one another. After they spent a week without contacting each other, they had a conversation about letting a relationship develop slowly, like a crockpot meal! They spent more and more time together, and even took a trip to visit some friends in Wisconsin (which is a 10 hour drive, in case anyone wanted to know)! The "official" dating began on September 29th, but they were really dating a month before that. Their relationship continued to grow and flourish as they prepared to spend 3 months apart, Zach in Birmingham and Karissa in Taipei. They not only survived being thousands of miles apart, but they continued to grow and pursue one another, even in the midst of tough situations. As they worked together at Rivercrest again, talks of marriage grew more and more serious. Without Karissa's knowledge Zach had secured the blessing of her parents. Then within a matter of months Zach finally asked the big question and Karissa said maybe...just kidding, she said YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zach and Karissa were planning to hangout one Saturday evening at Camp Rivercrest. Before they were going to hangout, Karissa was meeting up with a friend that lived near the camp, which made meeting up with Zach later more convenient. Around dinner time, Karissa and her friend headed over to camp to meet up with Zach. After chatting for a bit, the two headed down to the riverside where they were to meet up with the photographer, who was going to capture the moment; however, Karissa just thought that they were just taking couples photos to mark their first year of being together. When the photographer arrived, Zach looked at Karissa and gave her a letter that he had written over a year ago. The letter talked about how much he loved her and how much he wanted to marry her. When Karissa was done reading the letter, Zach got down on one knee and asked her to marry him and of course she said..... ABOUT DANG TIME!!!!!!