We both grew up in Georgia (Michael in Savannah, Katie in Augusta) but never crossed paths until we started undergrad at Yale University. At the beginning of our freshman year, we met on August 29, 2012 at a mutual friend’s birthday party. Throughout that first semester, we became really good friends, bonded by our childhoods in Georgia and our appreciation for science. Our friendship grew into something more that next January, and we officially started dating on February 15, 2013. We shared many college memories together for the next 3 years. Then when it came time to move on to our next stage of life, we were able to coordinate our professional degrees in Raleigh, NC (Katie at NC State for veterinary school, Michael at UNC Chapel Hill for his PhD in organic chemistry). We most recently moved to Delaware to settle down and pursue our careers.

On this beautiful spring day Michael proposed to me in an adorable forested alcove in the middle of Duke Gardens. We’d planned a fun picnic trip to the gardens but I’d accidentally scheduled a car oil change without knowing Michael’s sweet secret plan. While I knew a wedding was in our future, he definitely managed to take me by surprise on this day!

As you all know, we had our big wedding scheduled for May 30, 2020, but Covid-19 had other plans. We had to postpone our big wedding celebration (twice). We still were able to be married in a small intimate wedding ceremony on our original date, and then we did our honeymoon trip to Aruba in May 2021 to celebrate our 1-year anniversary. Now we're looking forward to finally being able to celebrate with all of our friends and family in May 2022 at our sequel wedding/vow renewal!