Blake and Katie first met seated next to each other at an Emory University event called “Dinner with 12 Strangers.” Thinking he would play it cool, Blake decided to wait to ask Katie out until he saw her back on campus. Unfortunately, Katie graduated and moved to Scotland before Blake worked up the courage. 18 months later, they hit it off again while on a pub crawl in St Andrews, Scotland. Blake promptly asked her out; first for lunch (she had a meeting), then for a drink (she had basketball practice), and then for breakfast (she had to watch the paint dry). Confused as to why she wouldn’t go out with him, Blake asked Katie whether he was “totally misreading things,” while on a group camping trip in the Scottish Highlands. After interviewing him for 3 hours about his deepest convictions, Katie told Blake he had one date because “she was very busy, and this was either going to be something or nothing.” It was something. After a whirlwind romance in Scotland, including hitchhiking from Edinburgh to Madrid, Blake and Katie dated long distance before finally reuniting at Stanford. While there, they loved exploring the West Coast – from summiting Half Dome to hiking Big Sur, the rim of the Grand Canyon, and Humboldt County, to becoming wine snobs and Tamales Bay oyster aficionados. Five years later and ~100 yards away from their first date, Blake proposed to Katie at St Andrews in December 2019, locking her in shortly before he suffered a horrific bout of food poisoning. Already off to a promising start, they returned to California to (finally) finish up school, expecting to be married in May 2021. When COVID hit, Blake and Katie decided to get married back at Emory University on 12/30/20. Like their courtship, their first year of marriage has been full of adventures, but the biggest adventure of all was welcoming their daughter, Noma Grace Mayes, on 11/17/21. After a nearly two-year delay, we can’t wait to celebrate with you all in September!