Come celebrate with us!

So as you might have guessed that as a Trans-Atlantic couple, we didn't exactly bump in to each other in the street. It's February 2015 and I'm in the studio with my band and I'm flicking through OkCupid and a little notification pops up saying 'Kristen is a 99% match, maybe you'd like to say hello?'. I take a read and come away thinking "So she's in to all the same things as me, she's absolutely beautiful with a smile to die for and she would definitely ruin me in a game of Scrabble". The only catch? I'm in Plymouth and Kristen is in Atlanta. Well what's four thousand miles between friends? So I strike up an incredibly awkward conversation about our mutual love for Led Zeppelin and to her eternal credit and my immense relief; Kristen shows the saintly patience she has and replies. I then essentially neglect my duties as a 'musician' for the rest of the weekend and spend the whole time talking to my future wife. We spend the next year talking online, long chats on Skype and getting to know each other better and discover so many more mutual interests and then to top it all off; my birthday ticks around and in the post arrives 3 books and a two-kilo bag of Skittles. The lady knows me far too well. Jump forward to March 2016 and Kristen is here in England visiting a friend in London. We make plans for me to come and meet her for a weekend and I can honestly say that I have never been happier to spend time on a Megabus! That weekend went by far too quickly but we shared so many incredible experiences, visited so many wonderful places and it was made perfect by getting to share it all with Kristen; even if she did have to prevent a scene in the Science Museum. Patience of a saint and all that. I came away from that weekend feeling closer to Kristen than ever before and reconciling the distance, came to a realisation that she was truly the only woman for me and that I had to spend the rest of my life with her. I've learned all good things in life are worth the wait.

It's Christmas 2016 and I have just decided that I like it and I absolutely must put a ring on it, so where do I get a ring from? Fortunately I had my great-grandmother's engagement ring and after telling my parents that I absolutely must marry Kristen, I enlist Kristen's housemate Lauren who undercover manages to find out Kristen's ring size. Next, I have to do the right thing and on Kristen's birthday I asked Michelle's permission to marry her beautiful daughter and to my immense relief; she gives me permission. The proposal is on! So, where to propose to the woman of my dreams? It just so happens that in March 2017, I'm spending two weeks with Kristen on a road-trip around the South and where is the first stop? Cape Canaveral. For two space obsessives, where would be better than the gateway to the Moon? So after emailing NASA to ask their permission to use the launch-pad for Apollo 11 to propose to Kristen, it was on. It's the morning of March 11th and I'm pacing up and down the room of a hotel room in Cocoa Beach mentally rehearsing the words I've been working on for three months; Kristen unaware as to why I'm wearing the carpet out. I've got it all worked out when on the tour that I'll propose. What I wasn't planning on was proposing in the line for security when my bag was searched. Luckily the ring was in a hidden pocket and the plan was still on. Off on the tour we go and I'm getting more and more jittery by the minute. We get to the viewing point for the Moon launch pad and it was now or never. I handed my camera to a passer by and asked him to take a few pictures of Kristen and I with the gateway to the moon behind us. Shaking, I took the ring from my pocket and completely forgot my lines and garbled my way through the proposal. Luckily Kristen pieced together what I was trying to say and even more fortunately; she made me luckiest man on the planet! For what it's worth, I did manage to get my lines right in the end; in the car park. Four hours later.