It was random, really, but there is no such thing as a coincidence in God's good plan. Our Scripture and Tradition professor was big on group work. Two groups needed one more person in them, and Matt came and joined Rachel's group. We quickly became friends as we did work together every class day and studied outside of class sometimes. We were freshmen then. Little did we know...

As second semester sophomores, we spent a semester in Austria. Matt was still in the Priestly Discernment Program (PDP), which meant he couldn't date. That was peachy keen with Rachel... until Salzburg. Though we spent much time together exploring Europe, there were too many barriers to being more than friends. Even the semester after Austria, when Matt left the PDP, it was still not the right time for a relationship, and we were skating on thin ice trying to remain just friends. In fact, when we left for Christmas break, we weren't even sure we would be able to be friends when we came back. We were kind of right, but not in the way we were expecting...

In January 2019, the first words that Matt spoke to Rachel were used to ask her on a date. The response: "Sure." We went to Moon, Pennsylvania and had an unbelievably wonderful time. Then, overlooking a foggy Pittsburgh skyline, Matt asked Rachel to be his girlfriend... and she said no. Actually, she said yes but not quite yet. About two weeks later, he asked again over hot chocolate and flowers, and we became boyfriend and girlfriend. Matt didn't even know he had given Rachel her favorite flower...

On St. Francis' feast day, after going to the Georgia Aquarium, we stopped by Epiphany Byzantine Catholic Church "to pray." Matt was standing in the aisle of the church with a vase of flowers next to him. Rachel's favorite flower, the carnation, was in the vase, which was Rachel's signal from her dad that Matt had asked for her hand and he had said yes. Matt gave Rachel a beautiful speech there in the aisle of the church, and then the love of her life got down on one knee in the presence of Love Who is Life and asked her to marry him. "Absolutely!" Rachel said.