We're getting married!!

From Rachel: Jacob and I met one night in college (at NC State, go pack!) when his friends invited me to study with them in Lee Hall. After that night, our friendship really didn't go beyond waving hi to each other in passing. Fast forward two years, I was selling t-shirts to raise support for a mission trip, and guess who bought one? Yep - Jacob Leitch! I was a little surprised but also thought it was very nice of him to contribute. A few months later, I still had not given him the t-shirt so he sent me a direct message on Group-Me asking when he would get it and that it had been so long he forgot what the shirt looked like. I kept forgetting to bring his shirt to church and he continued to message me about it. Eventually, I gave Jacob's shirt to his roommate which apparently made him second-guess my interest in him. Nevertheless, he still asked me for my number and texted me my favorite introduction to this day - "Hello this is Jacob." And the rest is history :) From Jacob: Rachel and I met in passing in college. We stayed as just acquaintances and she didn’t seem interested in me. But one day, while she was support raising for a missions trip, she asked in a group chat if anyone would buy her shirt that she designed to help raise money. I never got to see the design but I agreed to buy the shirt anyway. I thought she was cute and the few conversations we had together went well and I thought I could buy her shirt and maybe try and talk to her. Then we all went home for a couple of semesters and I just went about my life forgetting about any shirt. Later on, when we went back to school she reached out to deliver the shirt and it sparked a conversation that led to many runs together around lake Johnson. After a while, I worked up the courage to ask her out to get boba and watch the Dear Evan Hansen movie together. I think it worked.

From Rachel: Jacob made the bold decision to propose the day after I got back from a trip to France. I was extremely jet-lagged but this meant I was much easier to fool. My friend, Kendall, had made plans with me to take a walk that day and when I tried to cancel because I was so tired, she called me and told me how much she missed me and that she wouldn't be free the rest of the week so we needed to walk that day. This seemed normal to me so we went for a walk around Lake Johnson. As I was going through every detail of my trip, Kendall started to veer off the path. I looked up and saw Jacob standing by the water. Next thing I knew he was on one knee :) It was the most awesome, incredible, and ludicrous (Jacob's words) experience. With Lake Johnson being the first place we ran together and took many walks and runs around after, it was the perfect place to get engaged. From Jacob: For the proposal I knew it would need to be in Raleigh and I was running out of time before Rachel would move to Charlotte. I worked out a plan with her friend Kendall where she would ask Rachel on a walk around lake johnson (where we first got to know each other) and I would be waiting at the lookout to ask. Kendall agreed and started walking every week with Rachel so she wouldn’t be suspicious on the big day. Now I just needed to wait for the perfect time to surprise her and that came when she was coming back from Paris and the plan was initiated. She tried to back out of the walk but Kendall guilt tripped her into walking. When she finally came around the corner and got to me, I asked her to marry me and she didn’t really respond but started happy crying and eventually said yes.