Last year, as we joyfully started planning our wedding, we never imagined what the coming months would bring. 2020 was always going to be a memorably year for us, but now, only halfway through the year, it is clearly a year that nobody is ever going to forget. As is the theme these days, we have had to be flexible and adapt our wedding plans to fit within our new normal. We are really lucky to have so many friends and family that unfortunately, we have had to trim down our guest numbers in order to allow for social distancing in any sort of reasonably sized space! This was a very difficult decision for us to make and a hard reality for us to accept, but we have come up with a couple of ways that everyone can be involved in our big day. As has become so common, we will be offering an option to view the ceremony virtually for those who will be unable to attend in person. Additionally, for those local to the Cincinnati area, we decided to move our reception venue to Josh's parent's house and backyard so that we can have the freedom to welcome you to stop by for some dessert and to share in our celebration. Our wedding certainly isn't what we initially planned, but we are grateful to have so many people in our lives that make these changes so difficult. Whether in person or virtually, we are so thankful and excited to be able to share our special day with you all!

We first met at our fire team meet-and-greet, where we met the three other people that we were assigned to work closely with for the next four years. If you had asked me then, I would have said there was one single guy in our class that I could eliminate as a dating possibility, and it was Josh because if we broke up, we would be stuck working together regardless. He still gives me a hard time about my hesitation. In the end, though, we were, in fact, stuck working together regardless, and there was no denying or ignoring the connection that we had, so we gave it a shot and never looked back. Josh jokes that USAFA issued him all the friends he was allowed to have, and now USUHS issued him a wife.

We had decided to spend a weekend away, visiting Charlottesville where I had attended UVA. I was pretty sure he was going to ask at some point during the weekend, but I had no idea when. On the way down, we stopped at Luray Caverns to take a tour. With so many cool sights during the tour and a pretty fast moving tour guide, we ended up falling behind the group. Eventually, we reached a little alcove where it was just us, nobody else in sight. I was taking a picture of the formation there (the one in the picture at the bottom of the page), and when I turned around, he had the ring out and went down on one knee. It was such a special moment in such a unique and beautiful place. And we got the best of both worlds because we shared that moment just between us, but then we had the opportunity to recreate it and get pictures exactly where he proposed.