Reasonable minds could disagree as to exactly what happened on Sunday, July 3rd, 2022, but the key facts are as follows. Aaron had spent the day on the lake with family and friends, and decided to stop downtown on his way home to catch some live music. Sarah and her friend Briana had spent the afternoon at a day party and decided to come downtown for some food before moving on to the next part of the evening. Somehow their paths met at the entrance of 5th and Broad. Here is where accounts diverge. Sarah recalls that she saw the long line of tourists outside of Hattie B's, and thought she would offer them relief from waiting outside in the heat by telling them that Prince's Hot Chicken was available inside in the air conditioning. She also wanted them to know that Prince's was the original Nashville hot chicken. Aaron says that Sarah was yelling at these poor tourists and he stepped in to save them from further harassment. He then asked Sarah and Briana, "Wait, where are y'all from?" Sarah then made it clear that they lived in Nashville and that they knew what they were talking about--Prince's is the original Nashville hot chicken. Aaron thought he had heard the two hot chicken shops had started at around the same time. Which is exactly the illusion that Sarah and Briana had been trying to dispel amongst these poor tourists! From here, Aaron, Sarah, and Briana started walking and talking--about living in Nashville, recent exes, traveling the world, and finding home. Just before they departed, Aaron asked to exchange Instagram accounts. While Sarah was hesitant, Briana was excited to have made a new friend, and immediately volunteered hers! So for once in her life, Sarah caved in to peer pressure. Then the trio went their separate ways, and Sarah promptly forgot about the encounter. Then around 11:30pm, when she was checking Instagram before bed, Sarah saw she had a message request from an Instagram account she had conveniently forgotten to follow back a few hours earlier. "Ok, after refreshing my Nashville hot chicken knowledge via multiple sources, I have realized y'all were right, Prince's is the original hot chicken joint. I'm not too proud to admit when I am wrong! As a gesture of good will for questioning your hot chicken knowledge, what would you say to dinner this week?" Sarah immediately called Briana to tell her "that white boy DMed me on Instagram!" She then promptly responded the next morning at 9:30am. "Well you're already a better person than me because I am definitely too proud to admit when I'm wrong. Major character flaw! If you can overlook that, dinner would be nice!" The rest, as they say, is history ;)

Finding the right time, place, and mood to ask someone if they will marry you is hard enough, trying to ask Sarah Dawn Elisabeth the question and keep it all under wraps the entire time…that’s a whole other level! I knew that I didn’t want to start another year of life without her and knew I would ask her before the end of the year. However, timing was tricky because I needed to make the time to ask for Mr. Staples blessing, procure the perfect engagement ring that she had picked out when she was 18, and get it all to fall into place before New Years. Thankfully with the help of Sarah’s sister and God-sister, Allena and Jessica, we were able to get it done and keep it a surprise. I was able to find a weekend to sneak away and fly to Jamaica where Mr. Staples gave me his blessing and her perfect ring finally arrived just before Christmas. Now I had to find the perfect time to ask. I felt like it would be too cliché to ask her on Christmas and we already had plans to celebrate New Years with her friends at their wedding, and I knew better than to ask at another couple’s wedding! I decided I would use our regular Wednesday night, date night as a reason to get her out of the house and set the stage. As Sarah explained above (somewhat erroneously – we can talk offline if you would like), our story started around Nashville hot chicken and with the Hattie B’s and Prince’s debate, I suggested that we go back downtown to where we met to compare the two hot chicken sandwiches and at least decide who had the better sandwich. Sarah was trying to foil my plans at every opportunity, but after a lot of persistence, she finally relented and decided to entertain me at least. I picked her up that evening and we finally made our way to Prince’s and then Hattie B’s to compare chicken sandwiches from both. After leaving, we started retracing our steps from where we met to where I was able to convince her to give me her Instagram information or as I like to call it, “where she first started falling in love with me!” When we made it to our spot just in front of Shake Shak and just across from the Ryman Auditorium, I asked an unsuspecting tourist if she take a couple of pictures for us to which she obliged thankfully. After a few pictures and Sarah trying to rush us out of the cold and to ice cream, I turned to her and asked, “Do you remember when I told you I was all in?...” She looked at my confused and said, “Yeah.” I continued, “Well, my affections and wishes are unchanged…” After immediately recognizing the lines from her favorite Jane Austen novel “Pride and Prejudice,” she started backing away and asking, “Are you serious?! Are you serious right now?! While she started shaking and bringing her hands to her face. I continued, “…but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.” As I began to go down on one knee, people around us started realizing what was happening and one lady shouted, “I knew it! I knew it!” I continued, “Sarah Dawn Elisabeth, would you do me the honor of being my wife?” After what seemed like an eternity and bystanders asking, “Did she say yes?! Did she say yes?!” Sarah finally nodded yes emphatically and accepted her ring. After some congratulations from the bystanders, we started making our way back to the car while Sarah stumbled around in obvious shock. At this point, I was an afterthought as she needed to FaceTime Allena and Jess to ask them how long they had known. It wasn’t until about 5 minutes into the conversation with them that I finally received a verbal yes from her. I’ll take it 😊