We're getting married!

Our story begins in August of 2021 at the Grange Fair just outside of State College, Pennsylvania. I had just started my fifth year at Penn State, and Aaron was beginning his senior year. To kick off the new school year, Aaron’s friends planned a trip to the fair to play games, listen to music, and enjoy the last summer night before classes began. I had just moved in with my two new roommates (shoutout Riley and Alexis), who happened to be friends with Aaron. Since all of my close friends had graduated the year before, I nervously asked if I could join their friend group. They immediately said yes and assured me that everyone was kind and welcoming…everyone except Aaron Hughes. They warned me that he probably wouldn’t talk to me the first few times I met him because he “wasn’t very outgoing” (a statement Aaron later fully agreed with). At the Grange Fair, I introduced myself to Aaron while we were sitting on a bench. Riley, Alexis, Aaron, and I ended up riding back together to the infamous college house—and to everyone’s surprise, Aaron did end up talking to me…goldfish he had won at the fair in hand. The rest, as they say, is history. Throughout the fall, Aaron and I became really good friends. We tailgated together, went to parties, bars, and even a fun group weekend in Pittsburgh. We quickly realized how easy and fun it was to talk to each other, and we always seemed to find our way back to one another at every event. Even so, we remained friends for the entire fall semester. That changed at the end of January at a white lies party (iykyk), where Aaron and I had our first kiss. It did take Aaron a little while to officially ask me out after that—but I’ll cut him some slack since THON was quickly approaching and I was extremely busy as a THON captain. After an exhausting weekend for both of us, Aaron asked me out on a date the Monday after THON weekend. Our first date was at the incredibly fancy, five-star restaurant…Texas Roadhouse (guess who picked that). We ended up closing the place down and then talked for hours in the car outside my apartment. From that moment on, we’ve been together ever since. After graduating, Aaron moved home to Williamsport and I moved back to Pittsburgh, beginning our year of long(ish) distance filled with trips to State College and lots of Aaron driving to Pittsburgh (thank you, WFH job). Eventually, in August of 2023, we decided to take the next step and moved in together, finding a cute apartment in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. In the summer of 2024, we adopted our puppy, Ralph, who has brought an unbelievable amount of love and joy into our lives—we truly don’t know how we lived without him. In August of 2025, exactly four years after we first met, Aaron got down on one knee in the college town that means so much to both of us and our families. The Penn State Arboretum will forever hold a special place in our hearts—it’s where we decided to spend the rest of our lives together. We celebrated (hard) with our families in State College and can’t wait for all the memories still to come.