We are getting married!

We are getting married on June 22nd, 2021!! While we wish we could celebrate this special day with all of our friends and family, we decided to have an intimate ceremony with our immediate families in Glacier National Park!! Be on the lookout for our larger celebration later this year!

My side of the engagement story goes back way farther than Khari realized. I had to talk to her friends and her parents first to get a sense of what kind of ring she wanted. So stressful. Anyway, I went through a long and painful process to pick out a ring for her. Eventually, I met a jewelry designer from NYC named Yanni B. and he and I sat down and designed a ring for her and he made it specifically for her. Super cool. I received it a day before she and I went to Green Bay for a week at the beginning of November in 2020. I was so excited and started making plans to propose to her up there so that we could celebrate with her family afterwards, but I couldn’t get anything special enough together. So I just kept the ring in my pocket the whole time. Anyways, when we got back to Starkville the worst thing happened. We got COVID. So any engagement planning went right out the window and THEN the business of her school really took over so I had to push it off even longer. Long story short, she finally gets a week off from school and we plan a trip to Chattanooga right before Christmas. I knew this was my chance. So I start looking at all of the pretty scenic hikes we could take and try to think about the perfect place and time to pop the question. My plan was to ask her after we hiked to Sunset point on Lookout Mountain. When we finally got to the top it was beautiful and quiet, and I knew this was the perfect time. We were sitting on the rocks watching the sunset, and I suddenly got so incredibly nervous. I knelt down on two knees and told her how special she was and asked her if she wanted to marry me. She didn’t think I was serious and said, “Really?”. So I pulled the ring out of my jacket and said “Yes I’m serious!” She said yes and had the biggest surprised smile on her face. It was perfect.

During our trip to Chattanooga, we planned a hike to sunset rock. During the entire hike I was convinced we were going to be trapped in the park forever if we didn’t hike fast enough to get there before it was dark. Once we finally made it to the top of the mountain, we sat on a secluded part of the rock. Dean got down on not one, but TWO knees and with his most serious face asked if I wanted to marry him. Dean is a goofball 95% of the time and I was convinced he was asking as a joke and my response was “Wait… are you serious?” quickly followed with a YES!