The Coughenours 05.03.2026

We met on the very first day of freshman year at Penn State Brandywine. Mel was just helping a friend move in and wasn’t even supposed to stay the night, but she convinced her. She ended up crashing on an air mattress in the dorm room, only to wake up in the middle of the night surrounded by people. Apparently, that friend had invited the entire floor over while Mel was asleep. That’s when we first met. We had a short conversation, iykyk. The next day, while hanging out with that same friend, Mel ran into Dillon and a few others from the floor. We ended up playing “Would You Rather” in one of the study rooms, and of course, we got teamed up and won. No surprise there. From there, we started hanging out nearly every day, mostly in Dillon’s dorm room playing hours of Mario Kart, talking, laughing, and trying to convince ourselves we were just friends. At least Mel was. Funny story, Dillon once drove 30 minutes just to bring Mel a McDonald’s milkshake in the middle of the night during winter break. She walked outside, took the milkshake, said “thank you,” and went right back inside with zero conversation. Dillon wasn’t too happy about that, but luckily he still stuck around. He also made sure Mel was fed the entire first semester with his meal plan funded by his parents. Sorry Mr. & Mrs. C, it wasn’t the overly priced kombucha. Your son just clearly knew that food was the way to Mel’s heart. Our first date was for Dillon’s 19th birthday at Nifty Fifty’s, and from there, things just kept growing. Then came May 3, 2019, the last day of our freshman year. We were at our friend Sean Brady’s house for an end-of-year get-together when Dillon drunkenly got down on one knee and asked Mel to be his girlfriend. Naturally, we had to wake up the next morning to confirm it was official or if he was just happy drunk. Little did we know that exactly six years later, on May 3, 2026, Dillon would get down on one knee again and ask Mel to be his wife. Only this time, Mel was the drunk one. And now, here we are. 💛