How We Met: We met on a hot, sunny day in downtown Birmingham, Al in August on accident. I was going for a run with my roommate and bumped into a mutual friend who happened to be out with Joshua. He was from Virginia and I was from Ohio but were both in Alabama to attend Highlands College for the year. The funniest part is that I went into that first semester telling myself that I would not date anyone because it would distract me from my work while he went into that semester hoping he would find his wife.
We met and then went on our way, not really pursuing anything further ( even though he fell off of his bike into the bushes because he said he was distracted by how cute I was.) As the weeks and months went by, we found ourselves hanging out with the same friend group, quickly became close friends, then slowly more than friends. We would always find spontaneous adventures to go on, coffee shops to sit at, or rooftops to climb.
We realized that it didn’t matter what we were doing or who we were with, we always had fun when we were together. We decided to wait to officially date for a few months to make sure that this was something real, not just bubbly emotions that would possibly lead to heartbreak or disappointment. At the beginning of the spring semester, we decided to make it official and go all in as boyfriend and girlfriend and my gosh that was the best decision we could have ever made.
how they asked: My 21st birthday was right around the corner and Joshua and my best friend flew up to Ohio to come and visit for the week to celebrate with me. Because it was such a monumental birthday, they had the schedule packed with fun and exciting things to do. Joshua told me that he wanted to be able to have a romantic morning with just us before all of the birthday craziness started and asked me if I would like to go see sunrise with him the morning of my birthday.
There is an amazing castle called Squire’s Castle that was close to my house and we decided that it would be fun to grab a blanket, some coffee and sit together to watch sunrise there. As my alarm for 4AM went off I was not a happy birthday girl. I was exhausted and kept asking him to go somewhere closer but he insisted on the castle so I stopped complaining and went with him for an adventure. We drove to grab some coffee and then headed towards the castle.
As we were pulling into the driveway, I saw people up inside of the building but there were no cars and I naturally thought, ” Hey, there are ghosts in here..let’s stay on the front lawn instead of going in.” He laughed and agreed as we set up out little spot to watch the sunrise. As the sun was quickly coming, he told me that he wanted to take a picture on the timer but was going to set it on video so we didn’t have to worry about taking multiple ones before we got the perfect picture.
He set it up and slowly approached me and began talking about our journey together. All of the amazing times together, the experiences that brought us closer, others that made us grow, the places we have traveled and the beauty of our love story. The more he talked, the more nervous he got and I could feel his heart beating extremely hard. He looked at me and said, ” After only a few months of dating I knew that I wanted to marry you, so..”
He dropped down on one knee and asked to marry me. I was so shocked and surprised that my first response was ” shut up, are you serious?!” Super romantic. Anyways, I said yes repeatedly, jumped into his arms and when I did my family and best friend came from inside of the castle ( aka the ghosts that I thought I saw earlier) to congratulate us and celebrate our new engagement. Our journey to marriage is going to be a crazy, fun, and a beautiful time in our lives that we will never forget.