"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." {emily bronte}

In the year 2017, Jessica was living in Florida and loving the beach life. Mitchell was living in South Carolina and missing something important in his life. Every year, Jessica would go to the beach with a group of girlfriends. One of the girls, Heather who happened to work with Mitchell, had been buttering Mitchell up with setting him up with Jess. After seeing pictures of Jess on Facebook, his first words were, "She lives in Florida. What am I going to do with that? AND SHE'S A CLEMSON FAN? NO." When Jess was told about Mitchell, she agreed to go out with him because Heather was quite persistent, and what did she have to lose? The catch was Heather refused to tell Jess the name of the mysterious man, and would only send pictures of part of his face from his Facebook profile (that was 10 years old). After putting her girls on the task of finding this mysterious man while sitting at a Chick-Fil-A (in under 4 minutes, mind you) we had a name and a full face: Mitchell. The catch was Mitchell did not want to message Jess first. So, in a car ride to the beach, Jess came up with an epic technological appropriate pick up line that hooked Mitchell forever (if you're curious to know the line, ask and I'll tell. I don't feel it is particularly appropriate for a wedding website). After exchanging pleasantries for a few weeks, Jess drove to Columbia (reluctantly) to have her first date with Mitchell. She kept extending her stay in SC to continue to see Mitchell. By July 4, they decided to be exclusive and continue their relationship long distance for the next year!

Jess moved to Columbia the summer of 2018. After a long three weeks of moving from FL, finding a new home in Columbia and moving Mitchell out of his place and settling into a grove, a weekend in Asheville was much needed. Never been to the Biltmore House, Mitchell set up a weekend for them to get away. Jess thought this was odd at first, but was excited to get away for a long weekend before school started. As they toured Asheville/Hendersonville for the weekend, little did Jess know, Mitchell had an engagement ring in his pocket the whole weekend. That Saturday, they toured (and sweated!) the Biltmore and Winery. Mitchell just KNEW that the ring would send the metal detectors off while entering the Biltmore and give away his whole plan. At the end of the long day, they went back to their townhouse where they were staying and changed into comfortable clothes and decided to go watch the sunset at Jump Off Rock. Jump Off Rock is known for a Native American woman jumping off the rock because she was so heartbroken that her lover was killed in a battle. Super romantic. While sitting on the bench, and Mitchell said, "I think you know why I brought you here." Jess responded with, "Why? To push me off the rock so I can have a love story like the Native American lady?" At that point, Mitchell had brought the ring out of his pocket and said, "Uh, no. Will you marry me?" Of course she said yes, and they skipped home to tell everyone their good news.

We are getting married at Walnut Farm in Spartanburg, SC. An outdoor wedding in October in the south will surely bring lots of natural beauty to the wedding evening. Between candles and stringed lights, we couldn't imagine a more romantic place to say "I do."