While Macey was living and working in Milan, Italy as an Au Pair during the summer of 2015, she joined a Facebook meet up group for other Au Pair's living in the surrounding areas. During her visit to the small west coast countryside of Santa Margherita with her host family, Macey met up and became friends with another American Au Pair (Jessie). Jessie mentioned the fact that she saw on Macey's profile that she went to Liberty University and had a really great friend (Joshua) who would be transferring there in the fall. As Macey and Jessie became close friends and traveled together more, Macey can distinctly remember Jessie saying "I’m not quite sure what it is, but I know that you two would be such great friends…” Before returning back to the states to start her junior year of college, Macey reached out to Joshua and they began messaging each other a month before they would plan to officially meet at LU. On August 26, 2015 Macey and Joshua met in person for the first time over CookOut cappuccino Reese's milkshakes and watched the city of Lynchburg illuminate at night as they sat at one of Liberty's lookout spots and talked for hours about anything and everything. They both undoubtably came to the conclusion that they had connected with each other in a way that they never had with anyone else before.

Back in June 2016 (about a month into their relationship), Joshua decided to spend a few weeks out in California with his Uncle Doug exploring LA and helping out with some work for his marketing agency. Macey had never been to LA before but had always dreamt of traveling to the West Coast, so they decided that it would be the perfect adventure for both of them if Macey went out there to visit him and experience The City of Angels together. It ended up being (by far) one of their absolute favorite trips, and they made so many beautiful memories together that they vowed to never forget. So for Macey's 23rd birthday back in April 2018 Joshua surprised her with what she thought was just a paid birthday trip to LA... But on May 29, 2018 Joshua planned a surprise picnic in Malibu on their last full day of the trip. After enjoying some light refreshments, he instructed Macey to watch a video he created which began with pictures of the couple over the last few years accompanied by some of their favorite songs. As the video continued, each of Joshua’s family members in separate videos shared how much they loved Macey, loved them as a couple, and how they were so ecstatic to welcome Macey (officially) into their family. The last video in the sequence was of Macey's Mom, Dana. After her testimony of how proud she was of Macey for finding such an incredible man and how much she loved and adored Joshua, she told Macey that she should turn around now… And there on one knee was Joshua with a little blue box. Macey says that she had such an intense adrenaline rush that a lot of what Joshua said is somewhat of a blur. What she can very clearly recall though is him telling her that he wanted to stand by her side as her husband and be there with her through it all. That their lives were far from perfect and so much had gone not as they planned, but he would stand by her through every moment and love her until the very end.