While I (Hannah) was in PA school, I kept myself busy on weekends traveling various places with my friends from school. One weekend, my friend Anna Gayle invited me to go along with her to Columbia, SC for the Kentucky/South Carolina football game that weekend. On Friday night before the game, we were out at Jake's bar and grill with everyone that was back in town for the game. Jacob and other Kentucky football graduate assistants and staff walked in. We started talking and hit it off right away. About 10 minutes later, one of his friends told him that one of the GA's had been kicked out for peeing in the bushes and that he needed to go find him. Reluctantly, Jacob explained how he was actually responsible for him and had to go find him, but asked if I was ever up in Lexington if we could hang out. I replied with, "well I don't have any way to contact you." He pulled out his phone and I gave him my number. We texted for weeks and then one week I was headed up to Lexington to pick up my friend Danielle from the airport. I told him I was going to be hanging out at a coffee shop, studying, until I picked her up. He proceeded to say, "well if you want someone to buy you that coffee..." We ended up getting pizza and talking for hours. Shortly after that, he asked me to be his girlfriend and the rest is history! We dated for almost a year and a half before he got down on one knee at Kroger Field!

Every spring, the UK football team has a spring game where they scrimmage against themselves and invite fans to get hyped up for the season. I (Hannah) went to the game with Jacob's parents, JR and Becky, and his sister Maggie and her husband Derek. Before the game, Becky had asked Jacob if we could arrange a family photo for the Christmas card, on the field after the game with the one of the football photographers. It was arranged and after the game, we made our way down to the field. We arranged ourselves on the 50 yard line. Everyone insisted Jacob and I stand in the middle for the photo. The photographer snapped a few shots and then everyone started shifting and moving. Before I knew it, Jacob was down on one knee in front of me and everyone else had subtly dispersed. "Make me the happiest man in the whole world," he said. "Yes!!" I said. I was shocked, he pulled off the best surprise of my life! His mom had taken me to get my nails done earlier in the week as well, telling me it was my graduation present, and I had no clue. It went right over my head. He had asked my parents, Abby and Olivia ahead of time as well, so they were in on the secret too! The photographer got some great shots of the proposal, find them on our photos page.

What a crazy year 2020 was. As the spring months passed, we intently watched the restrictions become tighter and tighter. We decided to postpone our original wedding plans due to the significant guest count restrictions and uncertainty that lingered. We postponed our large celebration to 1 year later and started planning a small gathering with close friends and family, so we could still get married on our original date. We had a beautiful ceremony and small reception afterwards with close family and our wedding party. We were so blessed to have our entire wedding party make it to the celebration! Jacob's aunt and uncle lovingly opened up their beautiful home in Lexington and we had a wonderful, quaint backyard wedding. We were married by the FCA director and chaplain of the UK football team, Aaron Hogue. You can find pictures of our backyard wedding on the photos page.