Welcome, we are so glad you're here!

It was a bright, and sunny day in July 2017 when we met on our first day of medical school in Columbia, MO. We had no clue at that time that two journeys would begin, one for our careers and one for our love story. Kelsey fondly remembers Alec being the cute class clown, and Alec remembers his college roommates saying, "You better watch out for that girl Kelsey Rae." We spent the first 10 weeks in the same small group seeing each other on a daily basis and co-struggling through learning medicine. Our desks in our first small group (#Lab4forLife) were back-to-back and we would frequently spend time during class goofing off, and time after class studying hard to prepare for our exams. Over those 10 weeks, a deep friendship blossomed from the combined effects of mutual stress, high levels of caffeine (thanks Lakota Coffee Co), a shared faith, and an appreciation for country music & Grey's Anatomy. Even though our time together in our small group ended in October, our friendship did not. We soon realized our feelings for one another surpassed the platonic friendship we had formed initially, and we began dating. We spent the next year and a half learning how to make studying fun, traveling, eating Mexican food at Las Margs, adopting dogs off of Facebook Marketplace, and singing karaoke at East Side (fun fact, this is actually where we had our first kiss -- 10/10 for the memory, 0/10 for the ambiance) until medical school took us down to Springfield, MO for our clinical years. During that time, we both moved to a new city yet again, built new friendships, and figuratively survived a couple stints at long distance during Alec's military training, and literally survived working in the medical field during a pandemic (as we all know, Covid was the worst). Then came the plot twist in our story, that we joke we could have lived without, but has honestly shaped our relationship for the better. We found out we were getting sent to opposite areas of the country for residency (Alec in Tacoma, WA, and Kelsey in Memphis, TN). We tried to minimize the distance and make our relationship work for our first few months of residency but struggled due to our inflexible & rigorous schedules. We ultimately made the difficult decision to break things off after 4-5 months of trying long-distance. The End. Kidding! Clearly, this isn't the end of our story. We both spent the next two years trying to move on with our lives, and *spoiler alert* we kind of failed miserably, spending the majority of the time still pining over one another and using social media to stalk each other from afar. In the summer of 2023, Alec took a leap of faith and reached out to Kelsey not once, not twice, but three times before turning to snail mail to share his feelings for her. Kelsey received Alec's tattered, rain-soaked love letter in September after weeks of it being lost in the mail (Memphis USPS leaves something to be desired, folks) and reached out to Alec shortly after this, to set up a video call. After that first video call, we spoke every single day. Alec came to visit Memphis in November, and we made the decision to give our relationship another chance, despite the distance. For the last nearly two years, our lives have been filled with love, joy, laughter, thousands of miles of airline travel, and an engagement amidst the continued craziness of residency, graduations, cross-country moves and long-distance! God has been so good throughout the challenges we have faced; we know we wouldn't be where we are today without Him or our shared faith, so we felt it was important to share our story. THE END (for now!) We can't wait to celebrate our wedding with y'all soon!