Christopher and I spent our whole lives living only 7 minutes away from each other, but we officially met in sixth grade! We had language arts class together, and our teacher used us as an example for a lesson that started the young crushes. He was teaching pronouns that day, and Christopher and I answered a question at the same time and high-fived each other. Our teacher noticed that interaction and saw an opportunity to tease us. He looked to Christopher and said, "oh you'll like this one," and proceeded to tell the pronoun story, "HE was walking on the beach and saw HER and THEY held hands walking in the sand." Both of us turned bright red, blushing from the embarrassment. We continued growing up parallel, but in different friend groups; however, my crush continued all throughout high school. Anytime I passed that tall, long curly-haired hockey player in the halls, I would hit my friend's arm to notion that he was coming our way. After graduation, Christopher began hanging around some of my friends, which led to us texting and eventually hanging out one-on-one. We quickly knew this spark was something special and started officially dating after 2 weeks.

I knew I wanted to surprise Sarah with the proposal whenever this day would come. I researched different ideas and places to take her for months, then stumbled upon Wormsloe Historic Site in Savannah, Georgia and knew it was the perfect place. The only thing was, how do I get her all the way there without being suspicious? I have a buddy who lives there, so I fabricated a story that he needed us to pick him up and take him back to Atlanta so he could catch a flight. His car wasn't working (wink wink) and we really needed to help him out. Meanwhile, he and I were having fake text conversations about it, just in case Sarah saw my phone so that the story would check out. We had a free weekend coming up, so I knew it was go-time. We drove 5 hours to Savannah and, since we didn’t need to pick up my buddy till the next day, we had a fun date night that ended with a riverside hotel, “compliments of my buddy.” The next morning, we went to breakfast and had a couple of hours before picking my buddy up, so I suggested going somewhere while we waited. I decided on Wormsloe, and, of course, it was pouring rain. Great. We went inside, bought our tickets and an umbrella, and headed down the path. Once we turned the corner, it opened to the most beautiful, mile-long row of live oak trees. I spotted our hidden photographer while Sarah was too mesmerized by the trees. She said how beautiful they were and thanked me for taking her there and that's when I turned her to face me and said, "there's actually a reason why I wanted to bring you here," and got down on one knee. She realized what was happening and threw the umbrella in the air behind her, which made for some hilarious pictures. Turns out the rain was perfect because it cleared the entire path. It was just us and our moment. I popped the question, and she said yes!