Our story begins at a tiny liberal arts school in the middle of central Maryland. Growing up, neither of us had envisioned that we would end up attending Hood College but nonetheless that’s where we ultimately found ourselves and the both of us wouldn't have traded it for the world. The first time I remember seeing Jill was October of Freshman year. I had just finished up our 6am fall ball practice and was riding my bike across campus to class and passed her, right by the pergola in the quad. The only thing I remember was that she was wearing her neon yellow soccer shirt and more than likely was heading to practice. I was too nervous to make eye contact and said a muttered “hi” as I flew by. Little did I know that in that moment I had just rode my bike past my future wife. Freshman year came and went without us ever being formally introduced, we knew who each other were but had never had a conversation; this all changed during the Christmas break of sophomore year. I invited a group of friends to go down to my parent’s house in the outer banks for a long weekend and someone had asked me if Jill could come. I didn’t think much of it and said she was more than welcome to come. We all went down and that’s where I got to know Jill. This was the first time I had been able to have a conversation with her in the year and a half that I had been at Hood. How did this beautiful woman end up coming driving down 8 hours to my house on a whim and we had never formally met, some might say that this was the sign that it was meant to be....

After the long weekend in OBX we began spending more time together and by that I mean every monday night getting cheesecake from the grocery store across campus and watching the Bachelor. Eventually we started spending more time together and before I knew it we went on our first date to the DC Zoo. We had our first kiss behind the reptile house while a crocodile and some komodo dragons stared at us, romantic I know, and from there we began dating. The first time we said “I love you” was a night in April when the Bachelor had ended and I didn’t want her to leave just yet and I insisted she stay and accidentally blurted out “I love you.” I was shocked because I had never said this to anyone outside of my family. She smiled, shocked that I had said it, but said it right back without hesitation and I felt a rush of relief. As time went on we began going on adventures together and becoming best friends (if you take a look at Jill’s Facebook you can see all of the fun things we’ve done together because there’s too many to list). While falling in love at Hood we finished our degrees all the while playing 4 years of Varsity sports (Jill better than me because she played 2 sports year round), and then we started our lives together post college. We stayed in Frederick for a year after we graduated where I worked as a mortgage banker and Jill served as a legal assistant. While living here we got our fluffy son Nigel who means the world to us (couldn’t leave him out). Living here for an additional year rooted us into the Frederick community even more, which is why we knew we had to get married in the city that holds a special place in our heart.

After a year in Frederick we moved to my hometown in Virginia for me to work as a Financial Advisor with my dad and for Jill to attend Regent University’s Law School. We have been living in Norfolk going on two years now. I proposed to Jill on March 21st 2020, COVID-19 ruined my plan to propose to her at the DC Zoo where we shared our first kiss but I found a suitable alternative at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens in the same spot my parents got married. We have been through a lot as a team, loss of loved ones, multiple moves, living on opposite sides of the country from each other, job changes, supporting each other through law school and work and there isn’t a thing I would want to change about our journey because it got us to right where we’re supposed to be; together.