Sean: I was tending bar at McCarthy's on a cold November afternoon when I first met Lydia. The strange part is that I normally only work nights but for some reason I switched to work the day this particular Saturday. The reason may have been to have a few beers that night but Lydia will tell you it was faith because I may never have met her if I didn't switch shifts. Either way, good thing I did because I would never have met this wonderful lady I am about to marry! I may or may not have tried to kiss Lydia the night we met, only to be rejected. Lydia: One fateful evening, after a wonderful bourbon tasting tour (in Lexington, KY) I stumbled into McCarthy's Irish Bar with my wonderful friend, Kayla McCarthy (for obvious reasons). Sean was bartending and, of course, kept feeding us bourbon - even when his shift was over. He kept the conversation going and kept us there with food and more drinks. We ended up staying until closing and trying to teach Sean how to swing dance. Sean, thinking he was very smooth, asked for my number so he could show Kayla and me some hiking places before we left Lexington.

Sean: After waking up the morning after meeting Lydia, I knew I had to see her again. I wrote out a text (and deleted it ten or so times before sending it) to ask her if she would get dinner with me that day. Once I hit the send button the nerves set in and I immediately thought why did I send that, she will definitely say no or even worse, not even respond. Thankfully, she responded and said yes even though later on she told me she thought about saying no...lucky for her she didn't!! I was quite nervous about out first date and decided it would be a good idea to have some drinks before I met up with Lydia. A few drinks ended up being a lot of drinks and I was quite merry on our first date. The first date ended up with me singing a song back at McCarthy's and I knew if she still wanted to see me again after hearing that she was a keeper. Lydia and I saw each other everyday after that first date until she had to leave to go home but thankfully we made it work and are here today! Lydia: Much to my surprise I woke up the morning after meeting Sean to a text asking if I would go to dinner with him that evening. I was a little hesitant about going since I would be leaving Lexington in a week but agreed. We were set to meet at McCarthy's that evening and when I got there he was nowhere to be seen so I ordered a water and awkwardly waited for him to get there. He finally arrived (this should have given me a clue to his punctuality for the rest of our relationship) and we went over to a nice restaurant, Carson's, for dinner. We split a bottle of wine and randomly chose each others dinners. We ended up filling up on wine and french fries (we barely ate our actual meals). We went back to McCarthy's (of course) for a little bit of singing from the wonderful Bobby O'Byrne. Sean, somehow, got me to sing a couple verses and he ended up standing up on the bar to sing his favorite song.

Sean: Ok, so, the proposal was not at all how it was planned to be. I had originally planned to propose to Lydia on a bridge in Amsterdam during our upcoming trip to Europe. However, the night before I graduated college (finally) I ended up proposing to Lydia and she initially reacted by saying "is this real?" but thankfully said yes once she realized I was serious. Obviously this ruined all plans I had set in motion. Looking back on it, Lydia and I would both admit the way it happened was more us than the original plan. Lydia: Sean's family was in town for his graduation from University of Kentucky, which is the first time I got to meet them, and we all got to hang out at McCarthy's for Irish music night. When we got back to Sean's place we talked for a bit and somehow got on the topic of love and marriage. He asked if I loved him and he asked if I would marry him, in which I responded "What? Is this real? Are you sure? Do you mean it?" And of course, I said yes.