In 2016, the now couple had talked on and off for a few months as friends. In January of 2017, they eventually set up a date to walk around Ariana's college town of Bellingham, WA. On the day after the Maid of Honor's 19th birthday, Ariana was getting ready for her brunch date with Lloyd, but she had a pretty bad stomach ache. Her Maid of Honor and friend at the time tried to convince her not to go, but she really just wanted free crepes. They had her location and he picked her up in his black 2016 Hyundai named Sonya. The pair parked the car and shared a raspberry white chocolate crepe and talked as if they had known each other in a past life. Nothing was awkward between them at all as they joked and laughed and told each other serious stories about their past. After eating, Lloyd asked "so what else is there to do in this town" and she took him to the mall. They walked around for hours, looking at home decorating stores while they joked about how cool those sequin pillows would look in someone's house. By the time he took her back to her dorm, it was 8pm (the date started at 1pm). He opened his skylight in the car and said goodbye to her and kissed her under the stars and moon. She left his car thinking she wouldn't see him again, but eventually they kept texting and kept going on dates, and on January 17th, while they watched Lilo and Stitch (one of her favorite childhood Disney movies) he asked her if she would be his girlfriend and the rest was 7 years of history. Here's to many more.

The couple did a lot of sunrise dates during 2020 when we had nothing but time and every Sunday we had something called "Sunday Funday". On this particularly beautiful Sunday morning, Lloyd woke Ariana up to watch the sunrise at Virginia Beach, VA. They drove down to the beach together at around 6am and parked the car. Lloyd was dressed up in a button up blue shirt and nice pants and his favorite Jordans while Ariana was in a casual throw on blue dress and her favorite pink Birkenstocks. As Lloyd unloaded the trunk to grab the blanket they would use, he handed her a bouquet of lilies, her favorite flowers, and they walked down to the beach together. They were talking about their past week and almost got run over by a large beach cleaning truck. After moving their items away from the huge truck, Lloyd proceeded to tell Ariana how much he loved her and cared for her and would want to be with her for the rest of his life (she was in shock because honestly she thought the proposal was happening later that day at their sunset dinner). He eventually got down on one knee and asked the inevitable question "will you marry me". She of course said yes absolutely and they lived happily ever after. To be continued...