We're getting Married!

We met in the most unusual, perfect way. In March 2016, we were set up by Bill, Emily's uncle/Ryan's colleague. Bill thought that we would be a great match because we are both family-oriented and love to travel, cook and run long distance races. At the time, we were living almost 700 miles apart in Arlington, VA (Emily) and Murfreesboro, TN (Ryan). We started a modern romance, which means getting to know each other via technology - text messages, phone calls and FaceTime. It wasn't long after we started communicating that we scheduled a visit and Ryan offered to come to Washington, DC. When we met in person, the connection was undeniable. It felt like we had known each other for years, instead of meeting for the first time. We continued to visit each other back and forth from Virginia to Tennessee and had many adventures together in our cities. We even squeezed in a few trips to other places, including a memorable road trip through New England to see the beautiful fall leaves (something on both of our travel bucket lists). For the holidays, we spent Thanksgiving in Rockford, IL (Ryan's hometown) and Christmas in Arlington, VA (Emily's hometown) and enjoyed our first holiday season with each others' families. Everything flowed so naturally and we were starting to plan for the end of long distance. In April 2017, which was about a year from the time that Ryan had first reached out, we were packing up Emily's apartment. We were moving in together and living in the same place for the first time - Murfreesboro. A few months later, we got engaged in Chattanooga, TN! Since travel is such a core part of our relationship and our family and friends are located all over the country, we knew that we wanted to have a "destination" wedding. We are so excited to celebrate with all of you in our gorgeous new home state!