I knew of JP through mutual friends in college, but it wasn't until the summer after I graduated from TCU that I actually got to know him. JP and I were both involved in a college ministry that was on both UT and TCU’s campuses and we both took jobs to work for that ministry (StuMo) after graduation. We were both in Florida at our summer discipleship program called Kaleo, and there was one specific day that a bunch of staff went to lunch together. I was sitting by some of my friends and then all of a sudden, our boss starts moving people around and mixing up seats so we’d sit by people we didn’t know. JP and I ended up sitting next to each other at lunch and actually really hitting it off! We realized we both love this band The Brook and The Bluff, which basically became the foundation of our new friendship. 75% of our conversations for the rest of the summer had to do with this tiny band.. So, thank you The Brook and the Bluff. And Bryan Smith! We owe you. Anyways, we laugh now because sitting next to each other at that lunch is the moment we both point to as the first time we really started noticing each other. Fast forward to January when 20 of our StuMo staff friends decided to go on a cruise! I remember getting to know JP more that week and really enjoying being around him, so I left the cruise totally crushing hard! A month later, I received a phone call from JP asking me on a date! I asked him if I could pray about it and call him back tomorrow LOL. (I’m still not sure why I did that, but my watch was sending me alerts to breathe, so I was obviously panicking.) We went on two dates in the spring before the Pandemic shut down the world, and so our 3rd date was on zoom with dinners delivered by GrubHub :). Somehow, by God's kindness, we navigated dating long distance between Austin and Fort Worth for the next year until April 10th when JP asked me to marry him!!

Hey, JP here. If you know me well, you know that I love making videos. I have a lot of fun filming my friends or trips I’ve been on, and then editing that footage into a final product. I also think videos are a great way of capturing memories, even more so than taking a photo. So throughout our relationship, it became pretty normal for me to whip out my phone anytime Peyton and I were on a date or an adventure, and take a video of what we were doing (but mainly of what she was doing:)). I liked looking back on these moments when Peyton and I weren’t together during the week. Once I had decided that Peyton was the girl I wanted to marry, I had to start brainstorming ideas for how I wanted to propose! My first big idea… picture this… a hot air balloon! I’m not kidding. I was researching and figuring out prices and dates and everything. One glaring problem though — it was still really cold in February and March and didn’t seem like it was going to be fun standing way up there in the frigid wind… So I began to think of some other grand gesture I could make, and then it hit me — I had been documenting our relationship for the entire year! What if I made a video not only telling Peyton how much I love her, but also showing her the progression of our relationship from the first date to now?! I was excited about the idea. So I went to work. I corralled every piece of footage I could find. Every video sent over text, every moment captured from a date, every song we ever talked about, and every memory we had together all in one place. As I started the edit, I was confident she was going to love it, but how would I show it to her? Pull it up on my phone? Slide a laptop across the table and press play? Projector on a wall? In the midst of my out-loud brainstorming my mom said, “What if you rented out a movie theater? Not just any movie theater, that old vintage looking one in Grapevine??”

Genius. It was perfect! So the day comes and I’m nervous/excited/anticipating/freaking out/keeping my cool and am really just so ready to do this thing I had been praying about for a long long time (this thing being asking Peyton Archer to be my wife). I pick Peyton up at 10am (I was not going to wait the whole day) and we go on a drive. She has no idea where we are going, and the small talk was pretty good considering the life-altering moment that was going to take place in T-minus 60 minutes. We stop at a coffee shop near the theater, where I inject more unneeded caffeine into my system, and again, have an incredibly normal conversation. Then I say, “Ok. I have a surprise. Theres a movie theater down the street and I got tickets to a showing they’re having! It starts in 10 min so we gotta go now.” And Peyton’s like, “uhhh ok?”. So we get to the theater, walk in through the doors, and we’re the only two in there. There’s Ed Sheeran playing from the speakers and Peyton’s suspicion starts to grow. “Why is there no one else here? What movie are we seeing? Why is there music playing?” So many questions… I lead Peyton to a preselected seat and the movie starts. Footage of me talking to the camera, clips of best friends encouraging her, and moments from our relationship flash across the screen, seamlessly carried along by Justin Bieber jams and old love songs. After 25 minutes of this the screen fades to black, the houselights come on, and I lead Peyton out into the aisle. I kneel down, grab the box hidden underneath a seat, and show her the ring. I tell her I love her and want to spend the rest of my life with her. I ask her to marry me and she says YES!

After the hugs and tears we took a second to catch our breath, but I knew the party wasn’t over. We walked outside of the theater and began hearing cheers coming from a patio filled with people just down the street. Our friends and family were waiting at a restaurant to celebrate with us! We ran over to join the party, and couldn’t have asked for a better celebration. That day was amazing, and I cannot wait to shower Peyton with more gifts, encouragement, and grand gestures of love for the rest of our lives!

JP and I will be living in Austin, Texas, and working for Student Mobilization at the University of Texas at Austin for the next two years. We both love our jobs working on the college campus, so I will be moving from Fort Worth to Austin in August and transitioning onto UT's StuMo staff team. We are so excited to be married and to be a family who lives out God's purpose for our lives together.