From Rachel: So once upon a time, my friend Makayla asked me to go to a Sorority event with her super last minute. I had never been to any Greek life stuff so I was like sure why not... Brian was also invited last-minute to be a date for a friend. We actually have a big group photo from that night with both of us in it. The next night we both ended up at the same event again & exchanged numbers. Then a couple of days later he asked me out & I said no...(my bad Bri). And then a few months later we started dating for real haha

We actually decided to get married before the proposal (that's normal right?). Marriage has been on the radar for a few months & in like August we put a date on the calendar for next year since Rachel's work schedule was getting kind of crazy. So we ended up choosing a date & snagging a venue through a series of incredible circumstances. But Brian also wanted to propose.... Every year we take our December trip (and generally it's somewhere out of the country). But this year we knew it was going to be difficult/impossible to leave because of COVID. So we bumped our December trip up to October & decided to go do a road trip in the Northeast since neither of us had really been out that way. We started in Maine (then hit VT, NH, MA, RI, CT, and ended in NYC). On the first day of our trip we went to Acadia National Park & hiked Precipe Trail (highly recommend if you're ever in the area). We got to the top Rachel took a video of the view. In the video you can hear Brian ask if Rachel wants snacks...but instead of snacks he pulled out a ring. He said a bunch of nice things, we both cried, and then he asked! Rachel had made a little book of reasons she wanted to marry him (with pictures because ya know...photographer) that he had unknowingly carried up the mountain haha. Then we sat & giggled for a little while.