(Luke) One fated night, I decided I would brave the cuisine of Lipscomb's cafeteria for dinner. I sit down at my table, underwhelmed by the food in front of me, and I look over at another table where some of my friends were eating. To my surprise and delight, I saw a bright-eyed angel with a big smile approaching that table with her food. I knew I had to meet her, so I used the excuse of saying hi to my friends at that table as an "in" to introduce myself. And the rest is history...

(Elise) One of our favorite things to do in the Fall is to go on long drives (especially in the mountains) and listen to music. This means that we had been talking about taking a drive to the mountains for a while, but had never found a time that worked for both of us. So, one day, Luke mentioned that he had been bored at work and planned a trip for us that coming weekend. (Luke) Smooth, I know. (Elise) His plan was to get up early, drive to Max Patch (I had been dying to go there forever), grab a nice dinner in Asheville, and drive back to Nashville on the Blueridge Parkway. Going along with his plan, we left for Max Patch at 6:00. He drove the whole way to Knoxville and we listened to music and talked about random things. We, of course, had to make a pitstop at Starbucks (bc a girl needs her coffee). We then decided that we should stop at Kroger to grab some lunch food so that we could eat lunch at the top of Max Patch. The hunt for a Kroger was on. At the time we were on the interstate and Luke panicked and took the first exit. We got a little lost. That's okay though, we eventually found a Kroger and picked up some chips and uncrustables for our little picnic. We then continued our drive up to Max Patch. We hit a dirt road and rolled the windows down and blasted our fall music playlist. The higher we drove the foggier it got. We finally arrived at Max Patch. We hiked up and at the top, it was so foggy that you could hardly see 25ft in front of you. We decided to have lunch there anyway. We ate and prayed that it would clear up. The clouds started to part and 10 minutes later the view was BEAUTIFUL! Thanks, God. After that we drove to Asheville had some fried Oreos, went to the Arboretum, and had pizza for dinner. We started to drive up the Parkway just as the sun began to set. We made a few stops to look at the view. Luke kept saying "I wanna find the spot we took pictures at last year" so we did. When we pulled up there was a photographer taking pictures...

(Elise) Luke wanted to pull over right next to this guy, and I kept saying "No, this is not where we stopped last year. We have to keep going forward some." He would pull forward just a little and try to pull over again. I, of course, said "This is still not where we were. Keep going." (Luke) I hired the photographer and was supposed to meet him at that spot, and I was afraid he wouldn't notice us if we kept going. So I'm starting to stress out a little... (Elise) He had finally pulled up enough that I was satisfied, but where we stopped the bushes were overgrown, and you could barely see through them, so I said "Awh man, it's overgrown. Maybe we should walk back that way. Luke GLADLY agreed. We walked back the way we came some and sat down. We talked about the day, and when we stood up to walk back to the car, I noticed Luke's shoe was untied. Which I quickly informed him of because I didn't want him to trip! (Luke) I untied my shoe while Elise wasn't looking so I could tie it while she walked back toward the car. Then I would tell her to come back, and she would see me on one knee with the ring. Unfortunately, when I knelt down to tie my shoe, Elise just watched me, instead of continuing to walk toward the car. This ruined my plan a little, so I didn't know what to do. I awkwardly stood up, walked a few steps, and blurted out, "Uhhh, gotta tie my other shoe," before kneeling down again to a shoe that wasn't untied... (Elise) Meanwhile, I was watching him be awkward. He then pulled out the ring. I was shocked!!!! He said some really sweet thing that I totally forgot because I was so shocked, but I awkwardly repeated every word back to him. He asked me to marry him, and I said YES!