The year was 2012, and we were both incoming freshmen at UNC Chapel Hill, I (Rachel) was pre-med and William was on a full-ride scholarship for Music performance - very different trajectories from the get-go. We lived in the same dorm and had a mutual friend in common also living in Joyner Residence hall at UNC (Bridesmaid: Erin Connor) who had a hand in making sure the two of us became friends. The first day we met, it was through a dorm meet and greet and a bunch of people were in my dorm room. Will noticed a necklace I had (a euphonium) and asked if I played (remember, he is a trombone player); I laughed and said nope, I had just liked the necklace. Never has a face dropped faster and in that moment, I was sure our relationship would be ambivalent at best after his clear disinterest in the fact that I did not play a brass instrument. Our platonic friendship lasted the entirety of our first three years at Carolina, full of Carolina Basketball, Late night dinners at Ram's Dining Hall, Waffle House outings, lake trips, and random shenanigans. Eventually, Will and I figured out that we really had a lot more in common than we first thought, despite the initial euphonium necklace debacle and began spending more and more time just the two of us, and I distinctly remember turning to my roommate (Bridesmaid Erin Connor again!) "Do I have something to worry about?" She snort-laughed, said, "Oh, Rachel, of course you do" and from that point on, Will ~*officially*~ asked me out. However, the story doesn't end there, as I, the dutiful rule-follower that I am, told him I needed to think about it - (I was taking the GRE on the following Monday and one of the first things in the suggested guidelines of my prep-book sternly warned not to make any grand life changes before taking the exam...) So the poor guy stewed for 3 days, and immediately after I got home from taking the exam, I called him and said, "Yeah okay. Let's give this a try." The rest is history as they say.

June 6th of 2019 was a day I had hoped would come for a very long time! Rachel and I had already planned a trip to Denver together because she won a free flight from Frontier Airlines and I couldn’t think of a more beautiful place to ask her to marry me than on the top of a mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park. We flew out to Denver and then got up before the crack of dawn the next morning to go hiking early. We hiked our way up to the top of Deer Mountain and looked around to take in the amazing view of the snow covered peaks as the only other hiker made his way back down the mountain. I told Rachel I wanted to take a picture with her, but actually setup my camera to record a video. I bent down on one knee and told Rachel how much she meant to me, how much I loved her, and asked the big question of “WILL YOU MARRY ME?” Luckily, she said yes!!! I was so happy she said yes and couldn’t wait to tell her the story of how I actually bought the wrong ring leading up to the engagement and had to exchange the ring. Bekkah, one of Rachel’s older sisters, had been helping me and sent me some pictures of rings she thought Rachel would really like. So I took those to a jeweler in Houston and picked what I thought was a perfect ring. Come to find out, the pictures we were referencing were rings that Rachel sent Bekkah that she DID NOT like. I freaked out for a second and then remembered I could bring the ring back and exchange it after Liz, Rachel’s other older sister, calmed me down. We figured out exactly what style of ring Rachel liked and all was well. I’ll never forget that day or that I bought the wrong ring. Rachel's edit: I would have liked any ring Will picked out - but I had sent some rings ironically to Bekkah that I thought were so over-the-top ridiculous because they were much bigger and more glitzy than I would ever wear. She took my text of "This is ridiculous!!!" as a good thing, thus starting the ring saga.