Summer of 2017 was a time of transition for both of us. I found myself in a very unsettling situation as, for the first time since pre-school, I would no longer have the security of being a student. As I completed my degree at Samford, taught my last dance class at Birmingham School of Dance, packed up my apartment and said my good-byes to college friends, I headed to Nashville to enter the world of campaigning. Little did I know that my candidate would be indirectly responsible for Horace and I uniting in marriage. Meanwhile, on the other end of the Great State of Tennessee, another recent college grad was hitting the campaign trail with another candidate. Horace had just moved back from Texas to Memphis, where he landed a job as the Regional Field Representative for (at that time little known) gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee. As I was literally, and figuratively, “running” across the state with my awesome candidate, Horace was moved to Nashville by his campaign, where he started making the same trek in the big orange and smoky gray Bill Lee RV. Between campaign stops, town hall meetings, and BBQ dinners, the excitement of the campaign was more than I ever imagined. We were often in the same place at the same time, but didn’t actually meet until we found ourselves face to face at a Sumner County Reagan Day dinner in March of 2018. At that point I officially had the chance to make direct contact with the guy my Auntie Anne had often “name dropped” to me as a cool guy that I should get to know, especially since he had relocated to my part of the state. Anne had known the Tipton family for decades, as she provided some baby-sitting services for them while she was a student at Rhodes. It turns out that was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the mutual friends we shared, and Horace and I soon became friends.

Fast forward another year, Horace’s candidate was more successful than mine (which he never lets me forget), and I had started work on the Governor’s inauguration while Horace moved from the campaign to the transition team. A few months later, in late February of 2019, I accepted a position with the Lee Administration, where Horace had already been working. Horace was actually the first person I saw my first day on the job when the security guard didn’t want to let me in without a badge. He vouched for me and after that we began to see each other more often around the capitol, especially since the coffee pots were directly across from my office door. Horace quickly developed a coffee habit that required him to appear outside of said door frequently throughout the day. The month of March started out unbearably sad for me, as I lost my most special grandmother Wilma my second week of work. Amidst the sadness, two days after my grandmother’s death, Horace appeared in my office to “use my printer” (I later learned that he had a perfectly good one in his office). As I was preparing to leave work I decided that I needed a distraction, so I texted him to see if he wanted to grab Chick Fil A for dinner. I also identified him as my “new, best friend” just in case he wasn’t interested. I didn’t have to wait long for a reply - a confirmation that he too wanted to grab dinner but would rather go somewhere else; maybe somewhere that was more of a … date? That night, we attempted to eat at three different restaurants and finally after spotting a campaign event, being told we would have a terribly long wait, and making a few wrong turns, we ended up at Whiskey Kitchen.

We haven’t looked back since that first date. We also haven’t been back to Whiskey Kitchen. Over the next year, a lot more would change. We would both get new jobs - still close enough to see each other for coffee, but far enough away where Horace now has to use his own printer. Horace went to his first Mule Day, and I went to my first BBQ fest. But most importantly, we got to know each other. And we found out that we had a lot more in common than politics, or work, or family connections – we found that we loved each other. A year and a week after that first date, Horace got down on one knee and asked me to marry him- and I said YES! And now, on August 1st, we get to be married!