Our story begins at Clemson University in October 2020. No doubt, socializing as a college student in the middle of a global pandemic was pretty difficult! So, Alana started a group called "Clemson Friends," designed to help Clemson students meet each other virtually. Patrick's friend and now best man, Dawson, joined the group and recruited Patrick to join soon after. (Thanks, Dawson!) One fateful day, Clemson Friends had an ice cream meetup at the '55 Exchange, where Alana and Patrick first met in person. It didn't take long for the pair to make any excuse to see each other. Alana made an appointment at the campus IT department-- where Patrick "coincidentally" worked-- for him to change her laptop battery, and Patrick never missed a photo club meeting with Alana. Group outings quickly became one-on-one study "dates" at the library or Moe Joe Coffee. After one of these, Patrick said something like "Hey, um, would it be okay if I, like, asked you out sometime?" And the rest was history.