It’s Finally Happening!

We met at a wonderful philanthropic event at Florida State University known as Dance Marathon. Dance Marathon is a 40-hour long weekend event divided into two 20-hour shifts in which we raised funds and awareness for Children’s Miracle Network. Mikayla was running for Nick’s fraternity sweetheart at the time of Dance Marathon. At DM, she recognized one of Nick’s fraternity brothers (and now groomsman), Payton. She went over to say hi to Payton and introduce herself to the other fraternity brother who happened to be Nick. Through the entire marathon Nick and Mikayla were together just talking and supporting each other because 20 hours is a very long time. After the marathon, they continued to hangout almost daily and had a wonderful friendship. Nick began to develop feelings for Mikayla and naturally Mikayla was repressing all feelings in the hopes of only having a friendship. Once the semester was over, they both went home to South Florida and continued to see each other when they could. Nick finally got the courage to say something after a Darius Rucker concert and much to his surprise Mikayla interrupted his beautiful speech and said “I like you too!” Since then, we have kind of been inseparable, our love only growing each day.

The engagement really begins a few months before the actual engagement. Nick asked for Mikayla’s hand in marriage in July 2020, at Mikayla’s cousin Ashley’s wedding. Mikayla was a bridesmaid at the wedding so this was the right time to get her dad, Mark, alone to ask. Mark actually got so excited, he said, “Let’s go tell Mikayla!” So they did and she knew after that point it would happen soon. She anticipated it happening every weekend for about a month. After a month's time or so had passed, Mikayla began to be less on edge about a proposal happening. Come September 2020, Nick and Mikayla decided to have a full date night because "they hadn't in awhile." Little did Mikayla know, this was really Nick scheduling a full engagement night, with dinner afterwards for the two and both families. As Nick and Mikayla were taking the scenic route to their "date night" location in Jupiter, Mikayla noticed that the waves in Juno Beach were massive due to a tropical storm off the coast, and they decided to stop to take a look (Nick was already planning to stop at the beach to propose, Mikayla noticing the waves just gave Nick a very easy excuse to do so). As they walked down the beach, Nick fumbled with the ring in his pocket, finally distracting Mikayla with a "giant wave that hit the pier" to get down on one knee and have her turn around, with bridesmaid Kellcee and her boyfriend Jacob hiding along the beach taking pictures for us.