We're getting married!

Two summers ago, we both showed up in Manchester, Maryland to be camp counselors for high schoolers at River Valley Ranch. We met lots of new people, including each other, and became friends, and then eventually more than friends, throughout the summer. The day that summer camp ended, we got in a car and drove 12 hours to Greenville, South Carolina as boyfriend and girlfriend. We spent a few days there together, I (Kaley) met every member of his family, and Zach pulled out all of the stops to impress me until I had to get on a plane headed towards Florida. At that point, we did not know when we would see each other again. We dated long distance for several months, writing love letters back-and-forth, having lots of FaceTime dates, and spending many weekends exploring Tallahassee, Tampa, Orlando, and Greenville together. Meanwhile, Zach was saving money and making plans for the future. In March of last year, Zach was on his way to spend a few days with me and my family on our spring break trip to the beach. He flew to Florida with a backpack containing a few shirts and a diamond ring. Between the time that Zach got a moment to talk to my dad about his plan to propose that coming summer, and when he was supposed to fly back to South Carolina, COVID-19 hit in the U. S. and the world shut down. Zach had no way to get home and his job became remote, so my parents invited him to stay with us for a little while longer. Long story short, we went straight from seeing each other for a few days a month to being in the same house pretty much every minute for months. It was a trial by fire for Zach, the fire being my family.

Zach got to tag along on my family‘s yearly beach trip in June of last summer. He had cooked up a plan to propose while we were there so that we could share the special moment with my family. After waiting almost three months from the time he asked my dad and moving up his plan several times, Zach woke me up before the sun rose on the first day of the trip, told me to put on new outfit she had bought for me, made us coffee and led me down to the beach where he laid out a blanket, set down a backpack and told me to have a seat. At this point, I was certainly beginning to have some suspicions, but then he pulled out a book of photos and notes that he had to put together, chronicling our time since since meeting the previous summer, and I was truly convinced he was simply making this a special moment to look back on our first year together. After looking through the book for a long time, Zach stood up, helped me up, and I prepared to leave after the sweet and special, but not entirely out of the ordinary event. At this point I really thought that was all we were there for, until Zach pulled me in for a hug and I could feel him shaking. He started to speak, and I detected the nervousness in his voice and immediately started sobbing. Sure enough, he got down on one knee, said some sweet words about being on the same team forever, and ask me to marry him. Moments later, my cousins who happen to be professional wedding photographer/videographers, popped out of the bushes, revealing that they had gotten pictures and video of the whole event, and that there was even a microphone on Zach that had been capturing all of the audio too. We spent the day in a blur of shock, but it didn’t take long before we started making plans for a wedding and counting down the days.

After our honeymoon, which is a surprise trip for me (Kaley), we will spend the beginning of our marriage living in Dunedin, Florida. We are so excited to start our life together as husband and wife and spend our days enjoying our beautiful beach-town home, spending time with our newly-rescued pup, Leo, and continuing to live a life of adventure, fun, and service to the Lord.