Ryan and Lexi met at Oklahoma State University during the Fall of 2013. He was living in Village E (one of the dorms on campus) and Lexi was always over visiting her friend Kaitlin, who lived on the same floor as him. When he saw Lexi, he started calling her "the tall pretty girl" who would visit Kaitlin and when Lexi first saw Ryan, she thought he was the old guy living on the dorm floor! The two of them didn't officially meet, let alone start talking to one another until December 7th 2013...

It was the annual Oklahoma State v. Oklahoma football game and OSU had just lost against OU. Lexi had left the game before it ended to attend Kaitlin's birthday celebration. Ryan came by Kaitlin's door to invite them to a party and that's when the two of them met! Ryan went off to his party and Lexi had stayed with her friends. The next morning, Ryan and Lexi saw each other in the lounge area of the dorm floor and decided to sit and chat! They ordered chipotle and talked and talked for hours and the rest is history!

In March of 2021, Ryan and Lexi had the opportunity to travel to the Caribbean island of St. Thomas with Lexi's family. They had travelled here prior, in 2016 with a group of college friends and fell in love with the island. Shortly before the trip in 2021, Ryan acquired a specific ring, unbeknownst to almost everyone. He knew he wanted to ask Lexi to marry him during the trip, but did not know when. One evening, the entire group was heading down to take family pictures during the sunset. Before most of the family had gotten down to the beach, Lexi and Ryan were down taking test pictures with Lexi's sister and her boyfriend (Kryssy and Nate). Ryan asked Kryssy to go take Lexi to take a sisters picture facing the ocean. Ryan told Nate to get ready to snap some pictures and got down on one knee behind the girls. We don't think it took Lexi long to understand what was going on, she had been expecting this day for a while now, after all. When Ryan asked the big question, Lexi replied “No.” Ryan said “okay,” left, and here we are... kidding. Ryan asked again with a “please” and Lexi said “Yes!”