Matt and I met in November 2011 when I started working at The Roxy, the movie theater in our hometown of Dickson. We worked together often and started off as friends. The flirting began sometime within the next year, which was mostly just me annoying Matt in some form or fashion, and we finally started texting and hanging out in January 2013. We would text all day and night and would spend hours sitting in his car after we got off work at 10:30 at night talking about everything, from music to what we wanted for our futures. I remember sitting in his car in The Roxy parking lot talking until 4:00am on a school night (oops, sorry mom). I was sooo hesitant about starting a relationship right before I went off to college in the fall of 2013, and my friends still tell me to this day, "do you remember when you said you weren't going to date him because of college?!" Thankfully, I decided to date my sweet Matthew, and here we are! Matt and I have been through so much together. He has been right by my side while graduating high school, being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, losing my Gran, doing long distance from Nashville to Knoxville, losing our dog Bandit, graduating college, and now entering graduate school. Matt has been so patient with me through five years of school, and I am so glad that we both have each other to support one another in our dreams.

Matt proposed July 7, 2018 in Destin, Florida, and I was completely surprised! I had been begging Matt to go to the beach before I started graduate school at the end of May. Matt was pretty against it because he wanted to save money, and it is also super difficult for him to get off of work. He texted me out of nowhere one day while I was in class and asked if I could miss my Thursday morning class on July 5. I told him no because I would lose too many attendance points so I thought we weren't going to go. Well, we agreed to leave after my class that day. Matt didn't have anything planned out so he was just going to do it when the moment was right that weekend. I can be a bit of a complainer, and Matt is pretty used to this (oops again). He said he planned to do it Friday night when we were at the Wharf, but I kept making comments like "well this place is a dud!" and talking about how awful it smelled so I kind of ruined the perfect moments. The next morning, we wake up, and we are getting ready to head to the beach. I see on Facebook about someone that had gotten engaged, and, of course, I started complaining (oops). At this point, Matt was like "screw it" and started asking me about marriage and hugging me. I didn't even catch on, though! He then grabbed my finger and moved it to his pants pocket where I felt the ring. I immediately started to ugly cry! I had waited on this moment for so long, and it was nothing like I imagined it would be, but it fits Matt and I's relationship perfectly! Today, Matt and I live in Nashville and have two beautiful dogs, Nymeria and Fulton. They are our world, and I'm so thankful I have found someone that is willing to own 100 dogs with me and enjoy every minute of it.