It was the second week of Freshman year at TCU, and the Zeta Tau Alphas and Pi Kappa Phis had an organized meet and greet at an ice cream place, Sweet Sammies. While I was convinced I was mostly there for the ice cream, I couldn't help but notice the very good looking guy sitting across from me at the table. The good looking guy introduced himself as Morris and being the southern gentleman that he was, he repeated my name after I introduced myself and said "It is so nice to meet you CAROLINE". His version of the story will say that I "sassily corrected him." I recall that I politely corrected him (plus, I really wanted Morris to actually know how to say my name correctly). We left having nothing more than merely exchanged names and a few smiles across the table. Thankfully, TCU is not that big of a school so it wasn't but a few weeks later until we ran into each other again. Morris called out my name from across the Bluu, I looked up from the smoothie bar a bit confused (Freshman year is a lot of new faces) I smiled and waved from a far. A few weeks later, I saw Morris in line at the Chick-fil-A on campus. I found out my roommate had a class with him and immediately used her as an excuse to go up and talk to him. This is an important piece of the story because this is where I, Carolyn Campbell, made the first move. As Morris and I were talking, I told him he didn't have my phone number yet and that needed to change. I proceeded to take his phone and put in my number. (Unfortunately, at the time I was using a flip phone and therefore my texting was short with lots of abbreviations, but that is a different story all together) I think Morris must have liked that I made the first move because he asked me on our very first date to the SMU game a few weeks later! Morris and I had some great years at TCU. It is where we met, where we fell in love, where we realized that that we would become a part of the statistic that "28% of people meet their spouses in College".

Carolyn and I first met at Sweet Sammies Freshman year during a fraternity/sorority get together. We were both at a huge table of people introducing each other. When I met Carolyn for the first time, I pronounced her name as “Caroline” to which she abruptly corrected me in front of the table to call her “Carolyn”. As I pulled out of Sweet Sammies that night, the only thing I could think about was calling her the right name next time I saw her. Fortunately, the next time we saw each other was a few weeks later at the BLUU (aka the TCU cafeteria). As I was headed on my way out, she was walking from the smoothie bar, I said, “Hi Carolyn, how’s it going?” and she looked at me as a complete stranger. She literally forgot who I was! I figured that she wasn’t interested since I obviously remembered her, but she didn’t recall me. Our next meeting happened late at the TCU Chick-Fil-A. After a night on the town, some buddies and I stopped to get some chicken nuggets and fries. From outside, as Carolyn tells it, she saw me ordering and really wanted to come talk to me. Siobhan (Carolyn’s roommate) told her that she was in English class with me, and with that, Carolyn grabbed her hand and dragged her inside. Once they came in, I couldn’t believe my eyes, there she was again! After a brief conversation, Carolyn grabbed my phone and put in her number. I shot a text off later that evening and was surprised to see my text come in green (I thought I was talking to an Android chick). But apparently, she had phone trouble and the iPhone orders were backed up. From there, we texted more & more, and I began to think about asking Carolyn to the SMU football game in Dallas. I decided to do it in person because I didn't want to give her time to think up a reason to say no. When I asked Carolyn to the game, I was coming from fraternity duties so I was all dressed up. She thought I was a weirdo since it was Tuesday at 10pm but said yes! On that Saturday, I picked Carolyn up before the game. As she came to the door, she looked adorable with a white dress and cowboy boots on – a real Texan. As we walked to bus loading, I was anxious with how the day would go since we really did not know each other all that well. As we continue towards the bus, I noticed not many other girls in dresses. Actually, I noticed no girls at all. Come to find out that only myself and one other freshman invited dates to the game. Anxiously, I questioned if I joined the correct fraternity, and I was worried about how Carolyn would do in the awkward situation. As the natural conversationalist she is, Carolyn stepped into a large circle of other freshmen and introduced herself and cracked jokes. She was cool (whew). As we went to the game, we talked about Houston, Nashville, TCU, recruitment, frog camp, classes, etc. She was someone I knew I’d like to date, and I did not want to rush anything in hopes of continuing what we had built on. From here, I knew I found someone very special in a short amount of time at TCU. Over the next week, I reached out to Carolyn one night to ask her if she’d like to get frozen yogurt at Sweet Frog. As we walked over, we both discovered that it was closed so we headed to the next best thing: McDonalds for McFlurries. Carolyn got an Oreo one and I got M&M – Carolyn always considered this our first date which made me out to be a cheapo! We had a blast and caught up on the SMU game and each other’s weeks. From there, we started to see each other on a much more regular basis. Throughout college, we would date on and off at different points. We each wanted time to focus on the individual instead of being associated together and exclusively relying on each other. This made us a stronger couple together. Ultimately, and luckily, Carolyn and I rekindled our relationship in January of our Senior year and got engaged in Sandestin, FL a few years later.

Planning an engagement for someone who can easily figure out surprises is... difficult. Specifically, when you want both large families to be present, it takes some juggling. I was planning to get engaged to Carolyn for months. I carefully coordinated with her family and mine to make Easter weekend 2022 work. We had multiple, group texts, and we all had to be secretive to make sure she wasn't able to see anything. As the date got closer, some scheduling issues arose. First of all, Carolyn's family was flying in from all over. We had multiple flights from different Houston airports + California and because I wanted to get engaged on Thursday to enjoy the long weekend, there was timing pressure to it. Three weeks out from the engagement, Carolyn's work sprung a last minute week-long trip to San Francisco for the team. Given that Carolyn works from home, it was vital for her to be there... I went into full damage control mode. On one hand, I was excited for Carolyn's trip and wanted her to go. On the other, I had to tell her company that I had an engagement weekend planned and asking that the company event be rescheduled was a long ask. However, I talked to her bosses and they agreed she could leave training early, but it was on me to convince her to leave before it was over. So I reluctantly got Carolyn to agree to a red eye flight from San Francisco to Panama City Beach the day of our engagement. After she landed, I was relieved to have her in Florida without any flight delays and when I picked her up after only a few hours of sleep, she was in an OK mood. Not great, but doable for the time being. I immediately took her home and let her get some sleep while my family quietly prepped in the background. Behind the scenes, we had her whole family flying in and getting to their Airbnb's and hotels close by. Now, I previously told Carolyn before she left on her trip that we were taking family pictures together on the beach and that she needed a nice blue outfit for our photos. We had told her that she'd be in some of the photos but that it was mainly for our family to get updated ones. So as she got ready before the photos, there were a few questions on if our family really wanted her in the photos or not. That took some quick convincing but she ultimately got on board. As we took off to the Sandestin Beach, I was nervous about everything going to plan. We had a cooler packed, blankets, and a picnic basket that my parents had used for their engagement. As we neared our location, I was nervous and wasn't saying too much. We walked down to the beach, and I fake checked my phone for texts and told Carolyn that "my family is running late, they'll be here soon. We should just go down and find our photographer" to which she replied, "Your family is never late". Ha, very true. As we worked our way down to the beach, it was deserted. There were a few families and then a random person taking pictures of the ocean. Carolyn, being the inquisitive one, quickly pointed out our photographer. I told her that it wasn't the right person and that we would find them further down the beach where there was nobody. We walked for a while and I started the most important speech of my life.. it was going well. And then Carolyn said she was blacking out and needed me to repeat.. so I went back through it. Ultimately, I went down on one knee and popped the question. She said Yes! We took photos and talked about our lives together over champagne and sandwiches. As we left, I told her that her family couldn't make it down but we'd see them the following weekend. She was disappointed but understood. As we entered our house, her entire family came out and surprised her! I will show you the video sometime as we were able to capture her reaction. It is priceless and sums up why she is so special to me. The rest of the weekend was filled with laughs, beach time, dinners, and fishing. We loved every minute of having both our families there!