We met in June of 2019 when a mutual friend invited us to hang out with the not-so-secret intention of setting us up. We were just 15 years old, but we immediately hit it off and started dating shortly afterward. We spent nearly every free moment together, either on FaceTime or running around Houston. I am proud to say that I got Tatum to try Taco Bell for the first time. Unfortunately, we went our separate ways during our sophomore year of high school and from that moment I knew she was the one. I transferred to Episcopal, where she went to school and we remained close friends throughout highschool. During our senior year, while in Oxford, Mississippi for a Texas A&M football game, I worked up the nerve to ask her why things didn't work out. I missed her, and I always wondered what we could have been. Shortly after that, we found out we were both going to A&M and would have the next four years together. I would check on Tatum a lot freshman year to make sure she was doing alright, and would sit in her room just listening. I even got texts from her dad asking me how she was doing. The following summer I visited Tatum in College Station for our rush event. I could have stayed with my friends but I just wanted to see her. When she came back to Houston before fall of our sophomore year, we began to hang out a lot more often. School started again, and we saw each other every chance we got. A lot of our conversations were about how we didn't understand why nobody wanted a relationship anymore... she had no idea she was the girl I had in mind. By the end of that year I finally got up the courage to tell her that I still liked her. A couple of weeks later I asked her to be my girlfriend after an Aggie baseball game. At the time, I was unaware that dating Tatum also meant signing up to raise a puppy. One of my favorite memories was that May when I went with her to pick up her beloved dog, Goose. He has become a joyful and valuable part of our lives, never ceasing to amaze me. He spent Memorial Day weekend with us in Galveston where I told her I loved her. For the next two years we spent every spare moment we had together, going to football games, date parties, Breakaway nights, and baseball games which hold a special place in our hearts. We even went to Nashville to see her favorite band, Def Leppard. At the beginning of our senior year of college, we had a pivotal moment in our relationship. We decided to dive head first into our faith and strengthen our relationship with the Lord. Making Him the foundation of our relationship was the single most important choice we ever made. Drawing closer to God with Tatum further solidified my belief that she was the woman I was going to marry. So naturally, I started saving for a ring. Towards the end of our senior year I decided that I was going to ask her to marry me this summer - I didn't want to wait any longer. I was ecstatic. I spent the next month or so with the jeweler making sure I had the perfect ring for her. And I had the perfect plan too. Under the guise of asking for her fathers permission, I invited Tatum and her parents to spend the weekend with my family at our ranch in Columbus, TX. On that Friday, June 26th, I asked for her father's permission to marry her. The next day, I was so nervous that I could barely speak. To my surprise, she had absolutely no idea about my plan. Despite the fact that she saw the eight outfits I had packed for a two day trip. I told her I had found an armadillo's nest that might be cool to capture with her camera, and we drove out to the pond to "find it". Under the "armadillo tree" I asked her to be my wife and lucky me, she said yes! It felt like a dream come true that I get to marry Tatum. I could not stop thinking about how far we had come since we first met at 15. I had always imagined that she would be my wife and to this day I still feel like the luckiest man alive that I get to spend the rest of my life with her (and Goose).