The first time I saw Nic was when he walked into the Bentley Fellowship Hall on Mars Hill University and sat down in a Creative Appalachian Traditions class. The first thought I had when I saw him was, “I have nothing to worry about.” While that may sound unusual, it was the fall semester of my junior year in college, and I had decided to take a break from relationships to focus on myself. My thoughts felt vindicated when I learned that Nic was from New York, because I could never fall for a city boy. I later learned that Nic was actually from Ithaca rather than New York City, as I had previously assumed. Later that same day, I saw Nic in choir practice. I began to feel that my initial judgments of him were too harsh, and I tried to be more friendly. As the year went on, Nic and I would both spend time in the music lounge studying and working on assignments. Here, our conversations grew from simple hellos to funny conversations about beef tongues, the color yellow, and so much more. Our conversations led to me to believe that Nic and I would be good friends. My perception of Nic began to change after a random incident during choir practice. One of the guys in the choir came in wearing a very decorative jacket, which resulted in the choir director referring to him as Joseph. One of my friends, Megan (my bridesmaid), was confused by the reference, and I began explaining it to her. When I was telling the story, I accidentally mixed up the number of brothers Joseph had with the number of years of prosperity and famine. Nic happened to be walking by and heard my mistake and corrected me. I was dumbfounded because prior to this point, I thought that Nic didn’t know anything about the Bible. After this incident, Nic and I began to talk about faith and our beliefs. I even found Nic’s blog where he discusses the Bible through his devotional writings. The more I read Nic’s blog and the more I talked to him, the more I felt that our beliefs aligned. On November 11th, 2023, Nic and I went on a field trip to the Penland School of Craft for our Creative Appalachian Traditions Class. This was the same day that I finally worked up the courage to ask Nic if he was single. Coincidentally, we both arrived at school at the same time in very similar outfits. Many people in our class asked us if we had planned to match. It began to feel like fate. When Nic and I were walking back to our cars after the field trip, I asked him, quite awkwardly, if he was single. He responded, “Yes..Oh, look at this tree right here. This is a nice tree...Oh, so this must be the famous Fox Hall.” He avoided my gaze and kept looking at things around us to talk about. He even awkwardly followed me to my car, talking about my license plate. I school that day feeling very confused. Two days later, Nic and I were sitting in the music lounge working on our assignments. Whenever it was just the two of us in the room, Nic would try to talk to me but struggle to actually say anything. By the time he got the courage to say what he wanted to, Daniel (the best man) walked into the room and sat down with his usual flair. Daniel looked around the room and said, “I’ve walked into the middle of something,” and promptly left. Nic told me that he liked me as well, but wanted to remain friends for a little while. Despite asking to remain friends, Nic constantly asked me to eat lunch with him or to sit with him. We would often end up eating lunch and going to activities just the two of us. I eventually called Nic out on what he was doing. I told him for wanting to stay friends, he sure did ask me out on a lot of date-like activities. Nic, realising that, decided that we should officially become a couple. This occurred on December 4th, 2023. Nic and I continued to grow very close. We spent a lot of time together and with our good friends at Mars Hill. On January 16th, 2025, Nic asked me to marry him, and I said yes!

Raegan and I met the first semester I was at Mars Hill. We had a couple of classes together. We met in Creative Traditions in Appalachia, but the first time I remember us really speaking was standing in line to sing for Dr. Caldwell, Mars Hill’s choir director, so that he could sort us into sections. This was soon interrupted, though, when Seabron Echols—who would become a mutual friend—threw his arm over my shoulder and started trying to convince me to join his D&D campaign. As the semester continued, we both ended up studying in the music lounge quite a bit. We both also had a habit of getting distracted from studying by telling each other stories. We would start talking because of a question about our shared homework, but within five minutes, Raegan would be telling me about her horse that used to steal and drink unattended cans of Mountain Dew. Part of the way through the semester, I noticed Raegan had developed feelings for me. She did not know that I knew. She actually dispatched Seabron to discreetly find out if I was single and if I suspected she liked me. He concluded that I was oblivious, but it was difficult to be: Raegan would wait for me after class so that we could walk back to commuter parking together and knew that I had a blog before I ever mentioned along with other hints. Originally, I was nervous: I’d never experienced something like that before, and I still didn’t feel that I knew Raegan well. When she finally asked if I were single, I told her that I was but then awkwardly changed the subject. A couple of days later, I invited her to dinner in the cafeteria with the intention of gently turning her down, but the conversation went in unexpected directions. We ended up discussing our faith, our personal lives, and what we hoped our futures might look like in detail. The unknowns that had troubled me started to evaporate, revealing we were far more similar than I had anticipated and in ways that went beyond enjoying a good story. After that, we got in the habit of sharing lunch or dinner most days. A couple of weeks later, after much thought and prayer (and not-always-great cafeteria food), I realized I actually did want us to start dating—since we basically already were. Our remaining time at Mars Hill vindicated this decision in every way; I watched Raegan make time to sit with our friends in the music department when they were going through hard times, chase after and console them when they got too scared to finish a performance, and always speak words full of truth and gentleness. I got to see her be a mom—playing pretend with her son Jayden, elaborately planning his birthday cakes, and figuring out a schedule to read to him out of the Bible. Last summer, in 2024, I went to Japan, and being almost entirely separated from everyone and everything you’ve ever known provides a wonderful opportunity for reflection. By the time I got back, I had realized that the life that I wanted and felt called to was the one with Raegan and Jayden beside me. So—at the end of January, I got down on one knee and asked Raegan to marry me (and she said yes)!