Let’s rewind to our freshman year of college in the fall of 2012. This story is from my point of view, Kirstie. Our college-town-story begins in a bar when my best friend Kirsten and I were out one night in October. Mom and dad, if you’re reading this it was definitely an 18 and older type of place. The first time I met Billy was at this bar at 1:58am. Billy asked me to dance and I immediately had my guard up and said “no!” Needing a reason to not sound so harsh, I followed up with “there’s only two minutes left until the bar closes anyways.” Billy said “so, that’s still two minutes!” At 2:00am the bar played Closing Time, IYKYK, we hung out until our 8am classes the next morning, and the next 11 years is history and the happiest times of my life!

From spring breaks in college to summer breaks as working adults, you can always find us vacationing at the beach. Our beach trips are something we look forward to each year, which is why it made the perfect place for the best proposal ever. When Billy tells the story he always starts by saying that he had the ring for months before he proposed. The ring box was sitting in another box on his desk and he said I walked by it so many times and had no idea it was there. That’s probably one of my favorite details. We were staying at Vilano Beach for our trip in June 2022. We had just spent a fun day at the beach with friends and ate a delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant in downtown St. Augustine. Looking back, it was the perfect day. We planned to walk on the beach just outside of our hotel at sunset because I kept sleeping in and we missed the sunrise, which may have been Billy’s original plan. I changed into something comfy and waited for Billy by the door to head downstairs. Little did I know he was grabbing the ring. It wasn’t very subtle in his pocket though so once I figured it out I was so excited that this was our story! We walked on the beach and found a little spot away from people and he got down on one knee. At this point I was crying happy tears and couldn’t believe my best friend was asking me to spend the rest of our lives together. I fell into his arms and said yes as he put the most perfect ring on my finger. Shoutout to our friends Ryan and Lindsey for showing up with champagne and her camera to take authentic pictures of the moment. We're so excited to celebrate this next chapter in our lives with you. See you all April 6th!