In 2012, Amber and I met at OU in Athens, OH at The Pigskin. While I may not remember most of that evening, I do remember the pretty, smart girl who was so kindly conversing with me even as I started slurring my words. Liquid Courage empowered me to ask Amber for her number and she obliged. But I wouldn't use that number because Amber was a diligent student and I was usually more interested in the social aspects of college. Thankfully, I was still following her on instagram nearly a decade later. Amber posted photos of her and the famous Declan Lucca, which caught my attention. Through some more "research" on social media, she appeared to be single. After a few bevvies one night in January 2022, I made a reminder on my phone to text Amber at noon the next day. When that reminder popped up, I scoffed: "I can't text her out of the blue now, that would be weird." That night my old friend, Liquid Courage, revisited me and I decided that 3 a.m. was the perfect time to send her a message out of the blue. As the kids say, I "slid into her DMs" on instagram even though I still had her phone number from college. I was terrified when she replied immediately because, little did I know, Declan did not like to sleep. I invited Amber to coffee and she was game. Due to the circumstances, Declan joined us for our first date. While I consider this our first date, Amber considered this to be merely an audition. I went on to make her dinner for an afternoon movie date (again, Declan wasn't sleeping) where we watched Rear Window. Soon after, she met up with me and some of my rugby friends at Meister's after one of our matches. Near the end of the night, I felt like I needed to make it clear that I had a crush. I asked Amber, who held the pool table undefeated the entire night, to make a deal with me: if I win, can I have a real date? She agreed. I broke and then, as fate would have it, I made every ball to seal the deal. On our first "real" date, I asked Amber to go hear my favorite author, Neil Gaiman, speak at the Palace Theatre. Even though she did not have a ton of time to read, I learned she liked Viking history & Norse folklore. As a gift for her first Mother's Day, I bought her a copy of Gaiman's Norse Mythology, a collection of short stories - in hopes of it being more agreeable with her schedule. From there, our story was written in the stars. After we decided we had big dumb crushes on each other and moved in together, I knew I wanted to propose. Well, my aim for a surprise engagement in Ireland was foiled by Amber's detective mind and her disdain for surprises. So we started planning everything together, but my ONE surprise for her was getting to pop the question with a ring pop on college green in Athens while "Nobody's Perfect" by J.Cole was playing. After that, we got to share in the joy of surprising our friends and family together. I could have never imagined that an Athens night out at The Pigskin could have led to marrying my best friend and creating our amazing family. We are so excited to celebrate with everyone in July 2024!