Brannon and Melissa met at the state high school VEX robotics tournament for Georgia in 2019. Melissa was making up hours to compensate for weather-related school closings, and Brannon was volunteering at the tournament for his high school engineering teacher who was hosting the event. Neither of them caught the other person's actual name during that event, so when Melissa came back to work the next week and told her girl friends about the cute guy at the tournament, one of them went and told the husband of Brannon's engineering teacher (who worked at the same school as Melissa). He told Melissa that the cute guy's name was Brannon. Months went by and summer break happened. When school started back in August, the husband of Brannon's engineering teacher came back to school and told Melissa to guess who's number he had for her. By this time, Melissa had forgotten about the robotics tournament, so when he said he had Brannon's number for her, she was pleasantly surprised and a little nervous. He told her she would have to text Brannon first, because he guaranteed that Brannon was more nervous than she was. After texting back and forth and going on a few dates to local spots around town, Melissa and Brannon slowly introduced the other to their families and friend groups. Brannon formally asked Melissa to be his girlfriend in January 2020. Then COVID happened, so there wasn't much to do except hang out at one another's homes to watch movies and play games. They eventually moved in together in Monroe, where they bought their first home in Dec. 2022.

In October 2023, Brannon had been planning to propose for a while. Unfortunately, there was a fiasco with the ring thanks to the US Postal Service, but with the help of his mom, he was finally united with the ring and ready to propose! Brannon was planning to get home before Melissa one day, attach a note to their dog Zeia's Valentine's Day harness and have her ready to greet Melissa when she came in the door after work. However, October 17, 2023 was a long day for Melissa. She felt particularly crappy and came home early to take a nap on the couch. This only caused Brannon to freak out a little bit, because his plan was foiled... Because Melissa was napping, thankfully, he could still get Zeia ready with the note on her harness, but Zeia, being extra difficult, decided that she didn't want to go see mom, she wanted to play with her toys. So, Brannon lightly tossed Zeia onto Melissa to wake her up and see the note. Then he was down on one knee with the ring and asked Melissa to marry him. She said, "YES!" Melissa and Brannon are beyond excited about this new chapter for their lives, and are extremely grateful for the support of their friends and family.