Her view: After graduating from UNC, I moved back to Charlotte to start my first job! My first day involved traveling to Atlanta, GA for four days with all of my new co-workers for a company-wide trip (s/o Booster) to kick off the year. The trip was full of energy and my introverted spirit was in disbelief most of the time, but it was a really cool chance to dive into the company's culture and get to know the people I would be working with. One night, the company rented out a bar in the heart of The Battery for happy hour. I had already met Blake as he was going to be helping to train myself and the new hires, but he "officially" introduced himself to me and we talked about our mutual love of sports, our teams, our families, friends, interests, and hopes we had for our careers. Two hours later, happy hour was over and so was our conversation - it was so natural and easy. I remember thinking, "It is your FIRST WEEK of your new job - don't start crushing on someone from work!" Too late. His view: My life completely changed the day I met Morgan because little did I know she would become the love of my life. We were both working for Booster and were in Atlanta for our company wide kickoff. After a long day of meetings, we headed to the Battery to decompress and enjoy a chill night. I was a veteran on the team so I wanted to make sure to talk to each new person before the night was over. Each conversation lasted a few minutes until I talked with the last person – Morgan. I walked up to her at the bar and it was on from there. We talked about sports, dogs, family, life, more sports and before we knew it, two hours had passed, and the bar was shutting down. I loved every minute of it. As we were heading back to our hotel, I thought to myself “I hope she didn’t think I was hitting on her.” For the rest of the trip, I could not get her off my mind. I told my sister and her friend the next day that I was in love with Morgan. Three years later, we are getting married.

Her view: We had worked together for a few months and I was so excited when he suggested grabbing some brunch (honestly thought he would have asked sooner but it's a null point now haha!). We went and grabbed biscuits and what was meant to be a normal date turned into spending the whole day together. We spent a few hours at breakfast and couldn't stop talking about our shared interests, our families, and things in life that made us excited. I still have a note in my phone with a "Blake quote" - he said, "I want my friends and my family to feel how much I love them" - I wrote it down that afternoon because it was so sweet and now, I know it so clearly encapsulates who Blake is. We took a scooter ride to a bar to meet our friends to watch the Clemson v. UNC football game...it was a Clemson bar, I was wearing a UNC shirt, and Blake was wearing a Gamecock shirt. Needless to say, we were not the most loved there. I dropped Blake off later that night and as we were saying goodbye, he politely asked if he could kiss me goodnight. My response was, "maybe next time!" I'm SO GLAD there was a next time! We still joke about this today. His view: I was so nervous. I know she was interested by agreeing to grab breakfast but also thought maybe she’s just being nice since we are co-workers? Either way, we went to Holler & Dash for biscuits which was delicious. We both agreed that it was going to be messy and didn’t care how we looked as we ate them which made the nerves disappear. We then scooted to a bar to watch the UNC Clemson football game with friends where her passion for sports was on full display, so much that she almost fought a Clemson fan for being rude (partially joking). I thought it was funny and felt like a proud boyfriend even though it was our first date! We bopped around a bit more after that and at the end of the night, she dropped me off at a bar for the USC game. We chatted for a bit but the only thing on my mind was giving her a kiss goodnight. I wasn’t sure how she felt so I did the polite thing and asked. I was confident right up until the moment she told me no which till this day we still joke about!

Her view: November rolls around and at this point, we had been exclusively dating for a few months. We remember this day a little differently, but a lunch date at 7th Street Market led to a conversation of figuring out if we were a couple, what we admired about each other, and how we saw each of us being a part of our futures. It was the most honest and vulnerable conversation I've had with another person and every single minute felt so natural. At some point in 2020, someone asked us when our anniversary was and we both recalled this day as a turning point in our relationship, but it took scouring bank receipts and records to figure out the actual day we committed to pursuing a relationship - the best part is that November 12th is now our forever anniversary! His view: Now this is super funny. We went to 7th Street Market for lunch one day. She got some sort of breakfast tostada and honestly don’t remember what I got because I was so focused on her. We talked like usual but then started talking about us. We shared how easy, fun, and natural everything is when we are together and our feelings towards one another which then led me to ask her if we should just make it official. We both agreed that we didn’t want to pursue anyone else and we’d really like to keep seeing each other and building off what we had. Fast forward to who knows when, things were going so well except for the fact we weren’t sure of the official day that said we were “dating”. That was pretty important if we were going to have an anniversary to celebrate every year. We tried to remember but eventually had to look through months’ worth of bank statements until we finally landed on the transactions from 7th Street Market which was dated: November 12th, 2019.

Her view: One of my toxic personality traits in life is my inability to time my day well and consider how long it takes me to get ready to go somewhere. I promise I am working on it! It was the weekend after our anniversary and because we were out of town the weekend prior, Blake mentioned planning a "date day" so that we could celebrate, just us two. We LOVE getting coffee together on Saturday mornings and I had made us reservations for dinner that night, so Blake suggested we just wear our nice clothes all day. I was obviously in no rush, but we grabbed breakfast and headed to Rosie's Wine Garden for coffee and to sit in the pretty fall weather. Looking back, Blake was SUPER antsy and restless while waiting for our breakfast and coffee - I had made us late and he and my sister had arranged for a photographer to capture the engagement, so we were on a bit of a timeline. We started walking around the garden and came to a clearing where Blake mentioned, "oh, I bet this is where they host weddings!" I kept agreed (kind of brushing off the comment haha) and kept walking, but Blake pulled my arm back. I remember his entire demeanor shifted and his expression softened. He grabbed my hands and I have ZERO recollection of what he said to me, but I realized what was happening and immediately hid my face in my hands and cried. I remember hearing my whole name and him asking to spend the rest of his life with me, but I couldn't speak! My only reaction was nodding my head "YES!". He had opened the ring box upside down, which made the moment so light and funny. My sister jumped from behind a bush and my parents were there, too! He even had my college roommates come to surprise me and they helped him set up that morning. Afterwards, he surprised me with a party at Olde Meck with all of my favorite people in the world. We spent the rest of the day celebrating with friends and family and it was MAGICAL. Best day of my whole life. His view: My heart was racing. I had everything planned yet I was worried something would go wrong. Picked up Morgan and went to Rhino Market to grab breakfast to bring back like we have done before. We were slightly running behind schedule (shocker) and I was starting to get anxious. We got to Rosie’s, ate breakfast, finished our coffees, and began to walk around the garden. We got to the spot where I was going to pop the question but there was one problem, Morgan kept walking. I had to tell her to come back and when she did, I pulled her closer and she began to break down. I held her tighter, dropped to one knee, and asked her to marry me. Still not sure she said yes since her hands were covering her face but hey, that ring is still on her finger. Her sister popped out of the bushes, the parents showed up to celebrate, and I could finally breathe knowing I actually pulled this off without spilling any secrets and that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.