Danielle and Matt were both born and raised in Dallas. From middle school through high school, they both lived in Frisco, even attending Centennial High School together when Danielle was a freshman and Matt was a sophomore. They met once through a mutual friend (even though Matt has no memory of it), and then went on to live their own lives. After college, Matt moved to Baton Rouge for work, and Danielle came back to Frisco. One night in December 2013, Matt was in Frisco visiting family for the holidays and planned to meet up with some friends at a local bar. Danielle was killing time before heading downtown for a casual date when their mutual friend invited her to have a drink at the bar while waiting for Matt to arrive. Danielle rolled her eyes because the last image she had of Matt Grimley was a buzzcut and pierced ears--pass. But she thought "why not" and decided to join. Almost 3 hours went by with Danielle and Matt's friends waiting at the bar (Danielle would later learn what a "Grimley family goodbye" entails, and now completely understands what took so long). Danielle was moments from leaving when Matt finally showed up, sans buzzcut or earrings. She was taken aback, not just by his new image, but by the fact that Matt then made a point to sit down next to her instead of everyone else. They went on to get to know each other over the next few hours but spoke as if they had known each other forever. It turns out that her original date had stood her up, but she didn't complain about this twist of fate. Eventually they exchanged numbers, even though Matt was flying out at 7am the next day, and Danielle was positive she would never hear from him again. Matt didn't even wait until he got back to Baton Rouge to text her the next morning, and the rest was history! If someone said 10 years ago that Matt Grimley and Danielle Matise would be getting married, everyone would have laughed. But what's meant to be will always find a way...usually how you least expect it.

Once it became clear that Matt & Danielle were stuck together, the question became "How SHOULD he pop the question?" After all, Danielle is a master of organizing and planning, and Matt is...not. Even if she wasn't trying to find out any details, chances are that she was going to stumble across something. After Matt's parents were relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico for his dad's job, they decided to make a trip to visit them. Matt loves to research the best places to visit when traveling new places, and he came across White Sands National Monument. As soon as he saw the pictures, he knew he had found the place. With the help of his parents, he ordered the engagement ring to be picked up in Albuquerque, so there was no chance Danielle would accidentally find it or see it in his luggage. The first night in Albuquerque, Matt "went for a walk" with his dad & his brother Brenden while Danielle was unpacking. Little did she know that Matt was actually calling her dad to let him know tomorrow was the day. The drive from ABQ to White Sands is about 3.5 hours, but the scenery is so unbelievable that it was worth it. Once they got there, everyone made it up one of the tallest sand dunes. Matt's dad stopped and offered to take some pictures of them. After taking a few of "the usual" photos, Danielle turned and said "I want to take a picture with me on your back!" Matt then got on his knee and said "I need to do this before it gets too hot". Danielle, thinking that he was just getting down in response to what she said, didn't think anything of it and went to get on his back for the photo...but to her complete shock, he pulled out a ring. There was no rom-com speech about the way her eyes sparkled in the sunshine, and to be completely honest they both blacked out a little bit. But when Danielle finally came around to hear the last line of "Do you think you can put up with me forever?" all she could say was yes. It was more perfect than either of them could have asked for!