Allie had just moved to Columbus to attend Ohio State a few weeks prior to meeting the love of her life and future husband. Mike had been living in Columbus already and his friends and roommates had exposed him to the world of electronic dance music (EDM). Allie had also been subjected to this new craze from her friends. Though they didn't understand or appreciate it as much as both of their love and passion of classic rock, it was fate that they would both find their way to The Circus (a club in the Short North, now it is a popular taco establishment called Condado) on this night and fall in love. It was truly a typical love story, girl sees boy across a crowded and dark room and knows she wants to talk to him. Allie was with some girl friends and they had all been dancing together and fending off advances of random strangers who also wanted to dance with them. But there was only one boy that she wanted to dance with that night and she was going to make that happen. As he finally made his way to the dance floor, Allie slowly left her friends and began to do the one move she knew he wouldn't be able to resist: the robot. It worked. After a few awkward robotic gestures from the both of them, they decided to leave the dance floor and move to an area of the room where they could talk to each other. Though it was loud and sometimes nods ensured that they were acknowledging conversation that they weren't sure what was said, it was enough to know that Mike would get Allie's number and their love story would begin.

It was our last morning in Charleston, SC and our last day of our vacation, we knew it would end at some point, like all good things, they must end at some point–but what I didn’t know, the surprises were not done just yet. This vacation was completely planned by Mike, not only did I not know where I was going on this vacation, I did not know that the entire time, Mike had a ring hidden on him to eventually surprise me. We awoke, like most of our mornings that we spend together, me before him–I woke up at 7:15 A.M. and thought to myself, well, I guess we might as well wake up to get on the road. I still tried to rest a little, but that all ended once I heard Mike’s alarm go off at 7:30 A.M. I just had assumed that he had set it for the previous week at this time, but then he got up and said, “Well, see ya!” After being away for more than 20 minutes, I decided I wanted to see if he would tell me–a phone call led nowhere except for me deciding to just let this be a surprise and get ready to go. When I got out of the shower, I noticed Mike carrying two of the coffee mugs at our Airbnb with pasta and water in it. I was quite baffled by this sight and then I realized, oh yeah, we only have a microwave here, can’t boil pasta on the stove. It looked like we were gearing up for a picnic, I assumed this would be the surprise that he had been promising to come, but this was only part of it. Once we got everything packed up and we were back on the road, Mike decided that we should stop back off in Asheville and go up to the Blue Ridge Mountains for our picnic. We just finished our lunch and Mike grabbed our fake GoPro camera and stumbled to set it up…I knew something was coming. He apologized for taking us so long to get to this moment, but he went for his wallet and pulled out a beautiful heart shaped ring and asked me to marry him. I said yes and after a few tears and giggles, we looked at each other and knew this would be a moment to remember.

During the summer of 2017, I proved to Allie that I could plan a vacation without her help! I wanted the location to be a surprise. I chose to split the trip into a mountain/beach vacation. We spent 3 days in Asheville, NC and another 3 in Charleston, SC. Before we left, I bought a heart shaped ring, knowing that a mountain scene would be perfect for my proposal. Since I had never been to western North Carolina, I was going to have to scope out my scene on the fly. In order to not look suspicious, I kept a thin stick of deodorant in my pocket each day, with the ring hidden under the bottom. After a couple of failed attempts during our Asheville stint, we headed to Charleston. I knew I would have to find a spot on our way back, AND find an excuse to stop in Asheville again. I did some research and found some nice picnic spots on the Blue Ridge Parkway not far from the highway. Since we're not fans of grabbing fast food on a road trip, I thought a picnic would work perfectly. On the morning that we were due to come home from Charleston, I woke up at 7:30 a.m., which is much, much earlier than I usually wake up when I'm not working. I immediately walked out the door so Allie wouldn't have time to question me. I went to a grocery store and bought some picnic supplies. I returned with an unmade pasta salad, that I had to cook in a coffee mug in a microwave since we did not have a stove. We packed up my picnic supplies, explaining that we would stop in Asheville on the way home to eat the food. When we got back to North Carolina, we headed back up the Blue Ridge Parkway. I was looking for a spot that was secluded so that our moment could be ours alone. We find a spot called "Chestnut Cove," which was vacant. After eating our picnic, I tried my best to position our "GoPro" camera to record the moment. I finally was able to free the ring from my deodorant stick after 6 days! She said yes, and now we're getting ready to celebrate getting married!