I (Jordan) love telling this story! It is super fun for us to tell it in tandem because we were set up on a blind date (and our stories are very different), but for me - it was double blind! Let me explain my side of the story… Being relatively new to South Florida at the time, I was looking for any excuse to get out of the house and meet new people. I found out pretty quickly that it is not easy to make friends as an adult… enter dating apps. Hinge and Bumble BFF actually turned out to be quite helpful in my friend-seeking endeavor (yes, really!). Hinge was particularly helpful one unassuming Sunday… I chatted briefly with a friendly guy and had planned to meet him on Tuesday, April 3. He confirms that I do, in fact, like hockey (Go Pens!) and lets me know that we will be going to the Florida Panthers/Nashville Predators game that evening. Then, he disappears like a ghost for several hours... men these days ;) He messages me back explaining how sorry he was but he was not going to be able to make our date, but that he was happy to set me up with his roommate, and sends me the grainiest, lowest resolution photograph of said roommate. Even without knowing who this Hinge matchmaker was or what this mystery man was going to look like... I said yes! (thank goodness this didn’t turn out like a dateline story… whoops!) I show up to meet my date for the evening and, you guessed it; it was Joe! We hit it off immediately - it was effortless! Joe went to Georgia College, which is only 45 minutes from the University of Georgia, where I went to school. It's honestly crazy we hadn't met sooner! We spent the night enjoying the game, eating good food and having a ~few~ drinks ;) (hey - all of his closest friends were there that night, so I was a little nervous!) After the game, we spent time throwing darts in his living room and talking about life. It was the perfect first date and we owe it all to our matchmaker, Reid. Thanks for being the start of our forever, buddy (:

If you know me, you know how hard it is to surprise me... but if you really know me, you know that being surprised is one of my favorite things! Well, Joe managed to completely surprise me with the proposal - something that I was 100% convinced he wouldn't be able to do… He covered up the weekend by planning the trip with my parents as my mom’s birthday trip to St. Augustine. My mom, dad and brother were all very good at keeping it a secret, even as slip ups happened right under my nose… (there are many, so if you want to hear… just ask us!) We were supposed to be going to a very fancy brunch Saturday morning for my mom’s birthday - my dad is notoriously secretive about meal planning on vacation so I didn’t think anything of it. As we enter the Lightner Museum’s courtyard (which, as you could probably tell from the pictures, is gorgeous), my brother and dad mention that “there are koi in the pond” (yeah, I know, super lame haha) and that I should go take a look. At this point, I am tipped off slightly. As I walk towards the bridge, I see Joe hand his phone to Taylor… and then his hand goes back into his pocket… tipped off more. I turn around to take a “picture” and I see him smiling so sweetly and the box in his hand as he goes down on one knee… “When I met you two and a half years ago…” His words were absolutely beautiful - and will live only in our memories because since I was sobbing so loudly, the (THREE) video recordings only picked up my ugly crying. As I say, "YES!" and he puts the (ABSOLUTELY BREATHTAKING) ring on my finger, I hear cheers from behind some bushes across the courtyard - his entire family, including his sister who goes to school in Kentucky, pop out! I mean, WOW. Many people have asked… yes, we did go to brunch after, but it was even better than a fancy shmancy brunch; It was family. He surprised me so perfectly and I can’t imagine the start of our engagement in any other way!

From the moment I stepped foot on the Monastery's grounds, I knew it was something special. We had actually always planned on having a destination wedding, but this was even better. Built in 1100 A.D. in Spain, deconstructed stone-by-stone, and then reconstructed in its current spot, our wedding venue truly is a slice of Spanish history in the heart of South Florida... We didn't even look at another venue! Sometimes, you just know, right?! We currently live in Cooper City, Florida, with our two Golden Retrievers, Jax & Jilly. I work at Tambourine, a marketing firm dedicated to creating full stack, e-commerce solutions for the hospitality industry, as a Sales Executive on our world-class sales team ;) Joe works in the family business as a commercial insurance agent at The Iten Agency, but moonlights as an absolutely incredible home chef - seriously, his lamb chops and mushroom risotto are to die for. After the big day, we are off to Costa Rica for our honeymoon; aside from most importantly spending much needed relaxation time together, we are especially excited to ATV through the jungle, surf in the Pacific and rappel a waterfall! Once we return, we can’t wait to continue building our life together in South Florida, surrounded by friends and family. Though, if we’re being honest, we’re mostly looking forward to just getting back to traveling the world, officially this time, as #TheJitens!