We met at one of our favorite places called The Banque. I had been working as a waitress and he was a guest enjoying the music, friends, and line dancing when he noticed me first. Before we officially met I would catch Patrick looking in my direction just to quickly look away. Finally after a week or so Patrick walked up to me and said " hi, I just wanted to introduce myself and say you are beautiful" and left it at that until the next night. After that we started seeing each other more but didn't make anything official until 3-4 months after that because I'm not the type to rush things. As we were leaving the Virginia Aquarium one day I made our relationship official in a subtle way that it took Patrick by surprise.

I had no idea Patrick was going to propose, I had been teasing him for a while about it but I never expected him to do it so soon. The original plan did not work out because he was going to pop the question during our trip to St. George Island but Covid made us cancel our trip. Suddenly two weeks before the trip I found out my job would allow me to travel but the destination changed and we decided to visit my family in Missouri instead. The plans were to take family photos while we were there and during our individual photo Patrick got down on one knee and asked the question in front of my whole family and in front of the tree that was planted in memory of my grandfather who passed 2 years prior. I couldn't have asked for a better proposal. Funny fact about the photos is I had a weird, crooked smile during the proposal because I was trying really hard not to cry because I thought we had more afterwards.