We're Getting Married!

We met in 2016, during our first summer semester at Troy University in Troy, Alabama. We were a couple of incoming Division 1 recruits, taking summer classes and preparing to start our seasons in the fall - Kate with the women's soccer team, and Cam on the football team. So, where does the elevator part happen? We had been living in the same dorm building but didn't know it until one of the last days of the semester in late July. Kate was walking into the elevator as Cam was walking out of it. He looked up at her and said, "Are you Kate?" She replied, "Yes" as the elevator doors started to close, to which he responded, "I know Josh Appel." Instantly, Kate stopped the elevator door from closing and the rest has been history! To back track a little, Josh Appel was Kate’s next door neighbor growing up in Illinois. He played collegiate football as a longsnapper at Indiana State. When Cam was getting recruited, he visited Indiana State and met Josh who hosted Cam during the visit. After Cam chose to play at Troy, Josh told him that his neighbor, Kate, was going to play soccer at Troy and to look her up. Hence, the elevator conversation!

After the elevator run-in, we instantly became friends, and throughout our freshman year, we hung out together just as friends with many other mutual friends from soccer and football. However, as freshman year came to an end, we, and many of our friends, began to wonder if there was something special about our friendship. Just as we started to realize this, summer began. Cam was going to be in Troy, AL for the summer with a couple summer classes and football workouts, and Kate was going to be in Illinois until August. As three months seemed like an eternity to wait to see each other again, we decided to take a trip to Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville was the perfect location as it was the halfway point between Normal, IL and Troy, AL. The trip turned out to be very fun as we found ourselves in the middle of a huge block party on Broadway Street in downtown Nashville. The Nashville Predators were playing in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Nashville Predators went on to win the Stanley Cup, but that wasn't the best part...we became big Predator fans, and left boyfriend and girlfriend on June 3rd, 2017.

In December, 2019, Cam had the ring. He had plans of proposing sometime during the summer of 2020; however, things turned out to be a little more challenging thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was now a matter for Cam to find that new perfect moment. With some patience and a little creative planning, the stars started to align for a December 2020 proposal on the beach in Naples, Florida. Kate and her family planned a trip to south Florida during the Christmas holiday, which gave Cam the perfect opportunity to plan something special with both families in town. On December, 29, 2020, he asked Kate to go to the beach to watch the sunset. He said that their neighbor, who is a photographer, also wanted to test a new lens that she just purchased, so she came along as well. At one point, the photographer instructed us to face each other, hold out our arms, and lock hands. With the Naples Pier behind us and the sunset at it's most brilliant point, Cam reached for his back pocket and pulled out a little black box. There was Cam on one knee, asking Kate to marry him. And she said, "Yes!"