If you ask Taylor Newton or Joseph Humber, I promise you they will take credit for Luke and I meeting (they kind of deserve it). Taylor and I were college roommates. Taylor gets on Tinder and meets Joseph. I (Lainey) ended up becoming close with Joseph and some of his friends. Then I saw Luke. That summer, Luke took his journey across the US on his motorcycle while I snap chatted him the whole way. He asked for my number, and I, thinking it was quirky, sent him a one second long snapchat with my number in it. Fast forward to Luke finally moving to Auburn, and me returning to Auburn from Florida. From the first time Luke and I hung out (the day he moved to Auburn), the rest was history, and we haven't been able to get rid of each other since.

After about a year of dating, those two lines popped up on a pregnancy test. Our young selves were going to have a baby! After the initial shock of it all, we were excited. We had support not only from the greatest friends, but from amazing parents on both sides and family that supported us every way possible. Luke and I quickly moved in together in our first apartment, and a few months later brought our sweet Carter home.

Even before I got pregnant with Carter, I told my mom "This sounds weird, but I could really see Luke being the father of my children one day." What's funny is I didn't know it at the time, but I was pregnant when I said those words. After buying a house, Luke finding his career, and me settling into nursing school, the next step (in our backwards time line) was obviously engagement. Though we'd waited for this for what felt like forever, COVID did NOT care about Luke's plans. Even though COVID threw off the engagement a few months, it was so worth the wait. Luke, by some odd chance, pulled off surprising me. I confidently told my friends, "Luke isn't going to tell a soul his plans, he's too paranoid someone will tell me!" Boy was I wrong. Luke got down on one knee in front of 30 of our closest friends and got straight to the point. "Lainey, will you marry me?" If you've seen the Facebook live video, you can hear the cringe way I replied, "yeeEEeeeeeah!" Tears ensued, and so did the best night!