Coming soon to a brewery near you...

As most of you know by now, we met many years ago when Alex attended high school with my sister (thanks Kelly!). The two became close friends, so we saw each other on and off over the years at their meets, parties, and family gatherings. To me, Alex was just my little sister's buddy, but he claims he had a crush on me the entire time and thought I was just so cool...I still think that might have been a line, but it totally worked on me anyway. Fast forward a few years and fate would find us at Lake Sinclair on New Year's 2016. We spent the weekend catching up and enjoying each other's company, then shared what we thought was a friendly and harmless kiss as the clock struck midnight. The rest is history! That weekend at the lake made me see Alex as not just a guy, but THE guy I wanted to be with. I did make him say "I love you" first, but that's a story for another day :)

Going into last summer, I knew I was ready to ask Katy to marry me, but I wanted to make sure the moment was just right. Taking the next step felt right, and I knew Katy deserved a special proposal that we would look back on for years to come. I knew some of her fondest memories were at Fort Desoto beach, and I had started planning a summer trip for us when we decided to join her family on a trip to Tampa. While we were in Tampa, I started checking the weather obsessively, and found the day where we could take our beach trip with lovely weather and no rain in the forecast. The day in question, June 17th, we made a drive down to Fort Desoto. I felt like I had played off my nerves casually, but Katy will tell you she knew something was up first thing in the morning. We got to the beach and went for a walk down the shore, where Katy noted, “That big dark cloud sure is getting closer.” I laughed it off as we headed further down the beach, certain that the afternoon storm would blow past quickly. Then the rain started. We kept walking for a few minutes before I realized that it wasn’t going to let up. The next few moments are still a bit of a blur to me, but I managed to stumble through the first bit of what I’d prepared to say before Katy asked, “Is it happening?!” and I decided to skip to the end. She said yes! And then we began our journey back to the car. I was absolutely ecstatic as we made our way through increasingly strong wind and driving rain. Trying to talk would end in a mouthful of sand, so we mostly waited until we could throw ourselves into the car and begin drying our soaked clothes to begin celebrating. We started making plans for locations and dates in the next few days, and we’re so excited to share this special day over a year in the making with everyone! Here’s hoping it’s a little drier than the proposal!