Spring Break Hot Tub. At least, that’s how Brock likes to summarize how we met. In reality we had been a part of the same student organization for months but never officially met. We both were in the midst of our hardest academic years yet and escaped to Florida for spring break. Independently we had decided to spend the better part of that break sitting in the hot tub doing nothing. Lauryn was at first annoyed that someone would be joining her, but Brock proved to be good company. They left that hot tub and went their separate ways until the next annual beach trip when Lauryn came prepared with a killer playlist. Unbeknownst to Brock, Lauryn had spied on his Spotify and stole a few of his songs, pretending that she listened to them as well. It worked. We didn’t begin dating for another eight months, but we’ll save you the details of Brock playing the long game while Lauryn was in Morocco for the summer. By the time we were moving into our senior year apartments next to one another, Brock had already planned to rope Lauryn into two dates (again, that long game). After our first date we both knew that this was more than a college romance. Brock loved how Lauryn’s studious and stoic demeanor would shift to a silly fun mood when they were together. Lauryn loved how Brock always found time to rest and have fun in between intense study sessions in obscure places. And we both loved our time learning about each other, dreaming of our futures (independently at first then later together), talking about our friends and family, and introspecting during a particularly momentous time in our lives. Our senior year was hectic, but we always found time to escape with one another, going on drives around Nashville, meeting at the park after class, or breaking into the med center roof. As graduation approached, we began to face the challenges of a doctor-lawyer couple. Brock planned to stay in Nashville continuing his clinical research, and Lauryn had accepted a job as paralegal at a DC law firm. Brock’s plans quickly changed, and soon he had moved to Richmond for a one-year graduate program at VCU. While still long-distance technically, this was much preferred over a Nashville-DC reality. After two years of working in D.C., four LSATs, and the beginning of a global pandemic, Lauryn moved to Williamsburg to attend William & Mary law school with her new puppy, Netto. Brock hopped between Richmond, D.C., and Nashville, before ending up at the University of Tennessee in Memphis for medical school (more long distance). We knew we wanted to be together – that was never a question for us. But after trying for so long to wait for schools to bring us to the same city again, it became clear that that was something we would have to do for ourselves. As we write this, we are still on that path – Lauryn is applying for clerkships with a judge in Tennessee for after law school graduation, and Brock is setting himself up for a residency in D.C. But as Boris Johnson said in his resignation speech, “thems the breaks.” Personally, we knew we wanted forever, and we were not going to wait for that to fall into our laps. Always planners and dreamers, we spent time dissecting the next five years and decided that we wanted to get married – specifically in September 2023. Brock waited to propose until we were both living in D.C. for the summer, bringing together many of our friends and family to our favorite winery – Greenhill. After an anticipatory car ride to Middleburg, and five years of fighting for each other, Brock asked Lauryn to always make his life brighter and to go through the complexities of life as partners, forever. Lauryn had known since the summer after college graduation that she wanted to marry Brock, so she had been waiting to say that “yes” for a while. We are so looking forward to the year ahead getting to celebrate with our people. More than that, we are excited to continue our lives together as husband and wife.