We did it! Thank you to all our friends and family who shared their presence and love to make this such an exceptional day

While I was looking for a potential new apartment in South Beach, my friend Sylvia introduced me to her friend Kristian. While Kristian's apartment is beautiful, the sublet situation didn't work out for me. We chatted and had a beer, and as I was leaving, Kristian asked if "by chance, do you golf?"....and then invited me to add my name to a reservation in the name of Kendall Brown for later in the week. With golf courses just having re-opened from their COVID closures, I was looking forward to getting out, even with 3 strangers. I showed up to Miami Beach Golf Club and found Kristian and Ryan as part of our group. We hit balls and practiced on the putting green before heading to the 1st tee at our appointed time. We each hit our drives, and there was no "Kendall Brown" (I still didn't know if Kendall was a man or a woman!). As we prepared to leave the tee in our individual golf carts (due to COVID restrictions), an attractive and confident young lady drove up to the tee...music playing on her speaker, talking on her phone on what was obviously a business call. She smiled, waved, grabbed her club and stepped up to the tee (setting down her phone and saying "just a minute") and hit a drive about 200 yards straight down the middle! She picked up her phone to continue her call, smiled, hopped into her cart, and drove off. And our lives changed forever!

No, we didn't get married yet despite the wedding dress in the picture, and definitely NOT in the pool - I repeat, NOT in the POOL...there is a pool at the reception venue - DO NOT PUT BRIDE IN POOL!!!! I will haunt you forEVER if you put me in the pool on my wedding day :) We are looking forward to sharing & celebrating our love and exchanging our vows with our family and friends on November 11, 2023! Thanks to our scuba buddies, Leila (bridesmaid) & Ezra, for helping us with the underwater engagement pictures at our condo pool! David wrote the "How we Met" so here goes the Engagement story.... David & I have a tradition to visit tropical islands and scuba dive, choosing them in alphabetical order starting with the letter A's (i.e. Aruba, Antigua, next up is Barbados in June, maybe Cozumel in the future...). October 2, 2022 we visited Antigua for David's birthday where we went scuba diving. The only other divers on this dive were a British couple from London, England and the Captain/Divemaster. On the boating journey to the dive site, the other couple and I were busy chatting on the way out sharing scuba and London stories. I saw David talking to the Captain/Divemaster and assumed they were talking boat stuff. Turns out the Divemaster was giving David the "plan" on where there was a break in the beautiful coral reef with a sandy spot on the bottom of the ocean floor. He showed David a secret hand signal he would give to identify the proposal spot. On the second dive at 65ft, I was looking at the colorful nudibranchs 15-20ft away from David when he motions for me to come over. My heart sank as I thought something was wrong...giving the hand signal OK and swimming as fast as I could to him. As I neared, I noticed he's on one knee and has our underwater writing slate in his hand. The handwriting says "Kendall, I love you more than all the coral and all the fish in the ocean. Nothing would make me happier than spending our lives together Will you Marry Me?" And he hands me this ring box (I have gloves on) and it's VERY VERY hard to not cry underwater! He motions with his hands and shrugs his shoulders "well??" and I gave him two thumbs up! The divemaster is to the side clapping. I accidentally gave the ring box back to David cuz I couldn't put the ring on my finger due to the gloves. And as we were swimming back to the boat (what felt like an eternity) I had to sing "Under The Sea" in my head to keep from crying! I was like "FISH! Did you see that!?!?! I'm ENGAGED!!!" Had to keep telling myself "Don't hold your breath! Breathe! Don't cry! OMG did that just happen". Although we don't have the proposal documented on film, it was beautiful and unbelievably surreal and creative, and something we will always remember. We have pictures of us fresh out of the water, back on the boat with BIG smiles, along with the handwritten underwater diving slate with the proposal.