We're Married!

Spencer and I had been in several classes together before we officially met. He was a high school student who was dual-enrolled and taking college classes at the University of Tennessee part-time. By the time we officially met, and he was a full-time college student, we had been crossing paths for 2 years.

I remember meeting Spencer for the first time when I was a Junior, and the Aerospace Student Group at UT had a movie night to watch The Martian. I thought he was overwhelmingly cute and flirted with him mercilessly, but he denies this fact.

Flash forward almost 2 years from that first official meeting and Spencer and I have become close friends. We lived out the classic "right person, wrong time" scenario, so we still weren't together at this point. When the stars finally aligned for us to start dating, I was only a couple of months out from graduation. We went for it anyways (the heart wants what it wants, am I right?) and started a 2-year long-distance relationship as I moved off to Michigan to pursue my graduate degree.

In the midst of a 2 year long-distance spell and a global pandemic, Spencer was accepted to MIT, which he'd been dreaming about for as long as he could remember. So we knew we were New England bound. As I was wrapping up my master's degree, I searched for jobs in the Boston area - and soon we were both pursuing new opportunities in Massachusetts. We've been in Boston now for about 2 years. Spencer graduated from MIT with TWO master’s degrees in June of 2023 and started a new job in September. We have the world's cutest mini goldendoodle named Penny (pictures on the 'Gallery' page) and we are surrounded by a super loving community of new friends.

If you read the section above this one, you saw that Spencer finished graduate school earlier this year. To celebrate the end of classes in May, a group of our friends planned a trip to Croatia. Without a direct flight to Croatia, Spencer encouraged the group to book a layover in Paris, with the idea of proposing to me there. Flash forward to the trip, everyone is in the know and I’m completely clueless. A car picked us up from the airport to take us to our hotel (the group was split up across different accommodations) and the plan was to get a massage while we waited for the room to be ready. As I headed up to the room, where I was supposed to meet Spencer, I hesitated to knock because the room number I'd been given was the hotel penthouse... While I stood outside looking confused, about to call Spencer, the door opened and Spencer was standing in an aisle of roses with a ring. I said ‘yes’ (obviously) and we went to celebrate with our friends in beautiful Paris. Not a bad way to start off the rest of our life together.