I'm going to put a ring on her!

A couple of right swipes on Tinder.

In 2017 I was living and working in the backwoods of Alabama at a chemical plant as the best controls engineer they had ever seen. Kelly was living in Birmingham trading on $3 billion in assets, being really impressive, and enjoying life. We matched on Tinder and I made her drive to the halfway point between us, in Pell City, to meet up for a first date. I was tired of getting catfished or stood up in Birmingham and Kelly would never turn down a free meal. Upon meeting her at the Hwy 55 Burger Shakes and Fries, I was stunned by her beauty and intelligence. Our first date lasted over 4 hours and was filled with great conversation.

In our almost 7 years together we have had many adventures. We have visited over 40 countries, had countless food poisoning incidences while traveling, broken one leg, built 2 houses, got a flat tire while deep inside Big Bend National Park, and raised 3 happy rabbits. I didn't know when I matched with Kelly that she would be the last girl I matched with. I can't think of a better final match for me. She feels the same way.

The proposal happened! Turns out Kelly discreetly started planning her proposal to me in July 2023. She purposefully planned her sabbatical in November to go ring shopping for me in Hong Kong before our Maldives trip. Without knowing Kelly's plans, I booked our wedding August 2023 and told her we were getting married! I started planning my proposal on our Qatar First Class flight to the Maldives. Qatar said they would cater a cake for me and catering bungled it and there was no cake! Then of course after dinner Kelly fell asleep on the flight! With an hour left of the flight and a lot of help from the flight attendants, we put together a small pre-landing lunch with dessert and I proposed to the love of my life at 36,000 feet in the air. Though I already proposed, Kelly wasn't going to let this deter her from going through with her original plans. While we were in the Maldives, 5 meters below the ocean having dinner Kelly proposed! We can't wait to be married and start the rest of our lives together! **Original post: TBD, Kelly and I are a pretty non traditional couple. We started planning this wedding before a proposal. When the proposal happens I'll totally update this section and add pictures.

Many of you must be wondering how we ended up planning a wedding before an engagement. We were throwing around the idea of going to Antarctica in 2024 or 2025. Kelly off handedly said that if we were going to Antarctica it would be cool to get married while there. I did some googling and turns out we can get legally married in the British Antarctic Territory and the marriage license will have reciprocity in the US. The timing worked out that we will be going to Antarctica March 2024 and we started planning our wedding!

Anyone who would like to be at our wedding is welcome to come! We will be taking a SilverSeas cruise around Antarctica and getting married while on an excursion on the continent. We will be on expedition number EV240304006. Here is the link for the cruise line to book your trip: https://www.silversea.com/ships/silver-endeavour.html We found a travel agent willing to bite into her commission, you can contact me or Kelly for her contact information.

I am taking Kelly to Switzerland and Liechtenstein! We have already been mistaken for honeymooner's at all the classic destinations such as Bali, British and US Virgin Islands, Hawaii, Italy, Costa Rica, Galapagos, etc. I figured we will do something less traditional!