How We Met
Tyler and I met in college at East Carolina University (Go Pirates!) We both caught each others eye on and around campus during our first two years. He always wore his Patagonia hat and to this day it is my favorite hat. It wasn’t until our junior year, on September 7th, 2013 that Tyler and I finally got to officially meet each other. We were at a mutual friend’s apartment and I can remember seeing him walk across the living room towards me and a group of friends.
I started squeezing my friend Katy’s arm, freaking out that I was actually going to have the chance to talk to him, but little did we know talking to each other was the easiest thing. We talked for hours about anything and everything. That night we both knew that we had something special. Tyler even decided to hang on to a few of our bottle caps from that night and 5 months later he surprised me with them the night he told me he loved me. I had no idea he had kept them all that time but now they serve as a sweet reminder of the night we met.
how they asked
At the beginning of August my closest girlfriends suggested we all go to the beach the last weekend for a girls trip. I’m usually always excited about a beach trip especially with them but this time I didn’t want to go. I knew I would be traveling that week for work, which is extremely exhausting and I just wanted one weekend with nothing to do. I pushed and pushed to not go but my sweet friends were not accepting that. Little did I know, I HAD to go. Behind the scenes Tyler was doing all he could to get my work trip earlier in the week so I would go and he did a lot of talking me into how much fun it would be. Obviously, I went and Tyler told me he was going to Greenville to play golf with Ryan, which is not unusual, so of course I believed it.
When we got there Friday night, we all grabbed a glass of wine, sat on the porch and chatted about who knows what. Out of no where, everyone all of the sudden wanted to paint their nails, even Sarah (if you know her, you know she doesn’t really care about that stuff.) I of course was being complicated and didn’t want to paint my nails, Kelly even offered to paint them (and if you know her, you know this nice gesture doesn’t happen often.) I should have picked up on all the clues but for some reason it didn’t cross my mind.
That next day we spent the whole day on the beach and decided to go grab some dinner that night. Sarah mentioned that she would like to get some good pictures of her son Mason on the beach so we decided we could do that before dinner. While we are getting ready for dinner all of my friends were making a big deal over what I wore, me doing my eye make up, painting my nails, in other words being SUPER obvious but again I picked up on nothing. I kept saying “we are just going to dinner.”
We get to the far end of the beach to “take pictures of Mason.” They all kept saying they know this perfect place that will be so pretty for pictures, so I just follow. We walked down the beach foreverrrr and the whole time I’m complaining about walking a mile to take a freaking picture, you know being complicated again.
But then, they point and I see our dog Drake, then Tyler. I froze.
I was in complete shock. I walked up to Tyler, he said the sweetest things, got down on one knee and gave me the most perfect ring.
I couldn’t wrap my head around what just happened. He had a close friend from high school who is a photographer snapping pictures and our sweet dog there with a sign that said “Daddy asked and Mommy said yes.” It was perfect.
We all decided to go grab some dinner so we drop Drake off at the hotel, I paint my nails super fast, and we walk down to Dockside. As we are walking in the door I take a deep breath and say “okay no more surprises right?” and he said “yes, no more surprises.” Two seconds later I walk up the stairs and see our families and closest friends waiting for me.
Everyone cheers as we walk in and I of course start balling. Everyone was there to celebrate with us. Everyone that night played such an important role in our engagement and Tyler and I couldn’t be more thankful.
Now, we are incredibly excited for everyone to celebrate with us on August 26th, 2017.