We're getting married!

Kris and I first met at Jake's Steakhouse when Kris was working as a server, and I was at my sister, Corena's, birthday dinner. Kris hadn't been working at Jake's for very long, but he got to take the party, and it was all in God's timing. He was his charming, friendly self the entire time, and at the end of the dinner, I thought, "Eh, why not?" Sitting between my dad and sister, I left my Snapchat on a napkin with a note, thinking I would never see the cute server again. By the time my family and I got home, Kris had friended me, and we haven't stopped talking since! And of course, Corena will never let us forget that we met because of her birthday dinner.

Madee and I got engaged on June 14th, 2026. Before going through that day specifically, there are a couple of events I want to talk about. A few weeks before our trip to the Dominican Republic, I reached out to the resort to see if they had any way of helping coordinate a proposal for Madee. They got back to me and I began planning. I picked out Saturday, the 14th as the day I wanted to have a dinner for just us two and I knew I wanted it to be special. The resort helped me plan a dinner on the beach, decorate our room while we were at dinner to surprise Madee. The night before our flights, Madee and I were double checking our things and my suitcase was bulging because it was so full. I had the rings hidden in a pair of shoes. Madee told me to give her my shoes so my suitcase would fit on the airplane. Well great, I had put up a tiny argument about it but Madee isn’t one I can argue with for long. I had to sneak the ring out of the shoes and just drop it into the suitcase all while making sure the keep moving the shoes out so she didn’t get suspicious. Success! She didn’t notice a thing. The first few days at the resort were amazing. We were have a good time relaxing hanging with our friends, going to the events the resort put on. Then, I wake up on Saturday, today is the day. We go to breakfast and enjoy that. After breakfast we hit the pool for a while. I cannot stop doing laps in the pool. Luckily, that is completely a normal thing for me to be doing so Madee didn’t find it weird at all. After 4 hours of doing that we go to lunch at the Sushi place on the resort. There we all make plans for dinner and everyone knew beforehand I was proposing that night. They helped coordinate together to make it seem like Madee and I could have a dinner together without it being suspicious Madee of course, right after lunch already began booking us plans at the Italian place. I agree of course knowing that we won’t be doing that. Getting ready for dinner I had the genius idea of using around 5-7 hair ties to strap the ring to my leg so it wasn’t in sight. On our way to what Madee believed was Italian I broke the news that I secretly went online and canceled the reservation because I arranged a private beach dinner for us. It was right about now that I assumed she was going to start sniffing it out and the nerves really began to kick in. Once we got to the dinner we got a private gazebo on the beach overlooking the ocean. The view was beautiful but I couldn’t bring myself to spend more than a couple seconds looking at Madee or the nerves would eat me alive. For dinner we had fresh lobster and steak. The food was nothing to write home about but it was so romantic and special. As the sun was setting, a photography company came out and was setting up on the beach. They asked us if we wanted to get our pictures taken for them. Little did Madee know I hired them prior to getting to the resort in order to be there to capture our moment. At this point I knew Madee knew and the nerves were eating me alive. I brought Madee over to the spot they had laid out for me and I gave a speech I remember nothing about and I know it was longer than it should have been. Then I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. It was the most special moment in my life.