This story started on the back porch of Phi Lamb on Nikki’s bids night in September of 2013. Nikki and Brice were introduced to each other by their mutual friend (and Nikki's sorority big sister) Jenn, and connected over both being biochemistry majors. Brice’s most successful line will go down in history as “hey, I already took that class, do you want to borrow my bio notes?”. A few months went by, and they went to a winter date party together (strictly as friends). The next day, they met up for coffee and ended up sitting there talking for 6+ hours. From that point on, they have been inseparable and have spoken to each other every single day since- this is where their true friendship began. For the better part of a year after that, they cooked together, got froyo together, and studied together. They stayed up late together working on papers, and went to virtually all social events together. Brice would always walk Nikki home from parties to make sure she was safe. This entire time, she was completely oblivious to the crush he had on her. After some time (and some wine), Nikki realized that her feelings were mutual. At a backyard 4th of July party, when everyone else abruptly went back inside the house, they had a “what are we?” conversation, and decided to “just go for it”. 8 years later, they’re still each other’s absolute best friends and cannot wait to spend the rest of their lives together.

Originally, we were supposed to hike Yosemite and visit California wine country in September 2020, but we ended up pivoting to Maine because of the pandemic. When planning out our hikes in Acadia National Park, Brice was REALLY hyping up going on a sunrise hike, as Maine is the furthest point east in the US and therefore sees the sunrise before anyone else in the country. Gorham Mountain was chosen for our sunrise hike to avoid crowds and because it was right over the water. If you know anything about Nikki, you know she is NOT a morning person, so it really was an act of true love that she got out of bed that morning at 3:30 am to hike up in total darkness, illuminated only by headlamps and phone flashlights, with her dad and Brice. At the top, right at sunrise, Brice asked Nikki’s dad to take a photo of the two of them (but failed to mention his plan!). Brice got on his knee and asked the most important question of his life. After a few accidental selfies, we got the beautiful photo you can see at the bottom of this page. As you probably already know, she said yes! We are so excited to celebrate together with all our friends and family!