The night Baleigh and I met we both attended a CPCC young adults event at Lakepoint where all of the young adults were playing volleyball. Getting to the event late because of work, I joined a team that had an open spot, which happened to be the team that Baleigh was playing on. Trying to be friendly, I introduced myself and encouraged her to participate in the game as much as possible and after a victory or two, I labeled her the team’s good luck charm for the night. In all, we played maybe 5 games before they called for pizza when it arrived. Richard and I went up to her and Kaela to keep talking with them and invite them to the gathering on Tuesday. We also invited them to the following service on Thursday since they were new to YA and we were eager to get them plugged in. Throughout the night, I would chat here and there but had no expectation to ask for a date that night. Only months later, did I find out that that night was the first time we REALLY noticed one another without thinking deeper. I rode home with Carlos and as part of normal conversation, he asked me if I had my eyes on anyone recently. I pointed out Baleigh specifically. Well, after messaging both Baleigh and Kaela at the end of the night with another invite to the Gathering on Tuesday, I was eager to see them again.

They came and enjoyed it even though they didn’t spend a ton of time socializing after the service, but I thanked them for coming and reminded them about the service on Thursday, to which they both came as well. Again, I socialized with them and hoped they enjoyed the service and followed up by asking if they saw themselves coming more frequently over the next several weeks. Both responded with interest but no promises on their ability to make it over time since they were driving from Rome. Secretly, I knew at this point I was interested in getting to know Baleigh more, but I didn’t really know how to go about getting to know her so I figured I’d be patient and get to know her over time at church. Soon, I would really get to know Baleigh personally and quickly.

Thursday night came quickly and it turned out that Baleigh was going to be coming alone that night. I met up with her after service and asked her how her week was before offering to walk her to her car since she was alone that night. We walked all the way down the parking lot talking about the week, work, anything small talk, before we came to a stop. I asked her if her car was near which she said yes, and that she was driving a mom car. I point out that the car we are standing in front of was not a mom car, but just a Honda crossover followed by “a Honda Pilot is a mom car”. I was immediately met with a laugh followed by a correction that the Honda Pilot behind the car we were in front of was actually her car. TALK ABOUT EMBARRASSING! She then points out that the monogram was supposed to give her car away but I missed that too! Finally, I wished her a great night before parting ways, fully embarrassed for making a fool of myself. When I got back to the church building, a few friends pointed out that we walked out together and asked if something was going on between us… I remember saying no but wished that there was!

Soon after the embarrassing Honda Pilot incident, I went on a men’s church trip to Jacksonville where much of the communication between Baleigh and I took place via Instagram, and rather infrequently with our busy lives; however, we still made time to communicate when given the opportunity. While on the trip, my friend Gabe decided one afternoon to follow up on if anything had happened, and I told him no but that I had also not asked either, so I decided that afternoon that I was going to ask her on a coffee date to get to know her more in person! Well after sending the message, she said YES! This was only the start…we talked about finding time after work, but since she worked in a school, there was no time for coffee until after school, and with my job working 12 hour shifts, I had to go on a day that I was off. Eventually, we settled on getting pizza after a Thursday night service. The Mellow Mushroom in downtown Cartersville was going to be our first date! We didn’t sit together in church service for a while, so I met her afterwards and offered to drive to the restaurant. Once there we sat in a corner booth in the main dining room, ordered a buffalo chicken pizza with no bacon, talked about family, tattoos, work, and basically shut the place down at 11 when we weren’t kicked out, but we were “kicked out.” At that point, we both had to work the next day and Bae had a long drive back to Rome, so I took her back to the church and dropped her off after talking for another 30 minutes. What I didn’t know was that this would start a trend of late night talks every time we went on a date.

Over a week’s time, she mentioned that she had tickets to the UGA football game on September 23rd, and knowing that I was a UGA alumni, she had asked me if I wanted to go! I was particularly excited about going because I knew Athens fairly well and upon learning that she had never been to Athens, I saw it as my opportunity to show her the town and the campus where I had spent time in college. I didn’t think about how much this date would impact our relationship as it was such a long time that we would spend with each other, and yet we had only actually been on one date at this point.

This was really defining for us because it would determine whether or not we actually would enjoy spending time with one another beyond just a cordial hour or two. I tried to plan the day to optimize the most of her time and show her all of Athen’s best spots! First, we ate breakfast at my favorite restaurant in Athens, Mama’s Boy, and then proceeded to go to the UGA Wesley building where I had spent the years after graduating working as a discipleship intern in the ministry. Baleigh and I then decided to pretty much walk all of the UGA campus and I showed her all of the buildings that I had class in. We wore holes into her shoes through the miles of walking around campus. We talked more about family, our beliefs, fun memories, and basically anything that was relatable as we started feeling even more connected. We adventured until it was game time where we found our seats and started the game. This was the point in time that I was most nervous about being there since I knew that I would watch the game and I didn’t want her to feel bored at my focus. Everything went smoothly and much to my surprise, at the end of the game she wanted to get a photo together! I happily obliged because, who wouldn’t? We walked back to the car and it was nearly 11 PM at this point, we had a near 2.5 hour drive ahead of us with traffic. I remember her turning on some mid 2000s pop music that were absolute bangers! We sang and talked throughout the drive until there were only about 30 minutes left in the drive. She was quickly tiring and that much was obvious to me, but the song that would soon make her mine came on and I gave her a full show by singing or more so performing Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open ''. Needless to say, she was fully awake by the first verse and we listened to a few more songs before arriving at the church to part ways once more.

Our third date and probably our most important date was nearly a week later where Baleigh convinced me that I had to try her favorite restaurant, Linde Marie’s, as it had the best steak she’s ever had. I knew that I was going to be the judge of that! So, I met her up in Rome and picked her up from her grandparent’s house to drive her over to the restaurant. At this point, we had not met each other’s families but both sides were curious about who it was both of us were spending so much time with. At Linde Marie’s we sat and ate, even talked about the potential of what we dreamed our future families might look like. At some point, as it approached 9, we wrapped up dinner and I said that we should go to Target.. only to find out there isn’t a Target in Rome (yet another embarrassing moment)! Instead we headed to Walmart to get some items for a cruise that I was leaving out for the following day. We goofed off, walking through the aisles making jokes, but after leaving is where the most important part of the date came. We drove around Rome talking for the next three hours about all of the deep topics in relationships: what we desired in relationships, what our relationship histories were like, and what we wanted in a spouse. This was the date that I told her what I was looking for and how serious I was about finding a spouse, to which even though I had explicitly listed my desires, she held onto hers knowing that I was checking her boxes as much as she was checking mine. I went home that night feeling like things were going really great and that there was a lot of potential for the future with her. At this point I knew I really liked her.

The day following that date, I flew down to Tampa and got on a cruise to the Bahamas for the next 5 days with the full intention to have no communication. The goal was to focus on myself and determine whether I really really liked her and if I was going to fully give myself over to what was blooming before us. Well, that lack of communication lasted for all of 24 hours before I caved in to buying the wifi package just so that I could talk to her. We still chatted infrequently as I wanted to take time and think, but I knew that I missed her and wanted to see her again. The day I got back into town, we went to church that night and sat together. We were basically inseparable considering we hadn’t seen each other in a week’s time. We caught up for several hours as we had dinner with friends, rode to the restaurant together, and enjoyed our new norm of staying in the church parking lot talking for hours.

The next several dates following this were mostly consistent of going to some kind of church service and having dinner after, hanging out with friends. Only once did we see a movie together all while continuing to establish our norm of staying up late into the night talking about nothing and everything. These were the dates that we grew in our affection for one another while still determining how much we actually liked each other. I met her family for the first time on Halloween and she informally met mine just a few days before.

Time kept flying as November passed on until it all culminated one fateful night when we kissed for the first time. The next day, she left on a work trip to a conference in NOLA for 4 days…I remember offering to pick her up from the airport and being extremely happy when she allowed me to do the honor. Over the coming weeks, as we spent more time with one another, she would come to my apartment and we would have dinner after I got off work, or I would drive to Rome and we would enjoy all the time that we had with one another before separating for a few days. Eventually, I started thinking that I wanted to make things more serious by asking her to be my girlfriend.

One night, I walked her out to her car as she started to leave and I stood there with her as things got quiet. In the build up of telling her all that I wanted to, trying to say I wanted things to be more serious, I looked at her and said, “I just want to make this legit…”(yet another embarrassing moment on my end). However, she smiled because she knew exactly what I was trying to say all along. Following that, all of the time that we spent talking, much of it was spent looking at each other with meaningful eyes trying to communicate words that we knew we wanted to say. Baleigh would get so frustrated with me for looking at her but not telling her those three little words. She would say that she knew what I was thinking because she was probably thinking the same thing, but I wasn’t certain that I was ready to say them because I was afraid that she wouldn’t feel the same way. Our meaningful looks probably lasted another few weeks before one evening while we sat quietly in my car, she pointed out once more that I was staring. At that moment, I told her that I loved her and everything about her!

While all of this is happening, we are going on family outings together and beginning to enjoy the holiday season with one another. Somehow, after sharing our calendars with one another, we were able to make it all happen with everyone and all the while dreaming of a potential future that we wanted to have. Following the Christmas season, on a whim we started looking at wedding venues just for the fun of it, yet knowing that was the future we were dreaming of! Well, Baleigh sent me a website for a venue that had 6 wedding venues on the property and told me to pick my top three. We found that we had the exact same picks. After inquiring about the dates that were available for the venues, we signed up for the best one and set the date!

After that, all of the planning for the rest of the wedding and the coming life that we had together was being planned…except that no one knew (apart from some of her family who was with her at the time of the booking). We made a secret getaway to Howe Farms, where we toured all of the venues and continued to agree that our venue was the best one! For several weeks as we planned the wedding and made all of the preparations, we talked about the engagement that we still needed to have where Baleigh would tease me about finally putting a ring on it (que Beyonce).

Around the middle of January, I went to buy the ring with Brooke and learned that I needed to place an order for the ring to be designed which would take SIX weeks… In my mind, that meant that I had 6 weeks to plan an engagement surprise and a party to follow. After having several conversations with her family and friends in private from her, we settled on doing the proposal at Barnsley Gardens, where I had devised a plan with her cousins to set up a fake dinner to get her there and “explore” the property so I could get her to the fountain where I would propose. Much planning went into it and I was thankful it all worked out because obviously, she said YES!