Her Story: We met sailing between islands in the BVIs on Yacht Week. Two separate boats, same trip. On an island called Anegada, a boy living in DC and a girl living in Dallas found themselves sitting next to each other for dinner. We kept in touch after the trip and started flying back and forth racking up those airline miles - just to see each other. Love prevailed, despite the distance. His Story: We met on a trip orchestrated by The Yacht Week, a company whose motto is "the best week of your life." That's a pretty accurate statement. The Yacht Week hosted a private dinner party one evening at Cow Wreck Beach in Anegada, British Virgin Islands. After being served dinner, I was looking for a place to sit when I noticed a vacant seat at a table full of people from another sailboat. The vacant seat was next to Tori. My killer opening line was "is anyone sitting here?" From there we talked, enjoyed the festivities, and ended up on a dance floor. For the rest of The Yacht Week, I would discreetly ask my boat captain to dock near her boat captain each evening. I learned months later Tori was doing the same thing. We are both real smooth. From there we both were "playing it cool" and would "just happen" to bump into each other at each Yacht Week location. Post The Yacht Week, we stayed in touch and are now excitedly counting down the days until "I do!"

Her Story: My parent's neighbor came over and asked us if we wanted to go on a sunset sail as we were floating in the Bayou that summer afternoon. He said he had a scheduling conflict and it was already paid for and didn't want the booking to go to waste. Brett had (unbeknownst to me) arranged an afternoon sail with my mom, my dad, and my sister. Sailing under the causeway, our song started to play and Brett asked me for a dance at the front of the boat. I did not think anything of it because any time this song comes on Brett always asks me to dance. To the point he has stopped the car and gotten out in the rain with me to dance to this song. At the front of the boat and down on one knee, he asked me to be his dance partner for life. His Story: The whole proposal idea process started long before June 2022, and Riley, Tori's border collie, was the first one who knew my plan, likely back in 2020. Having a good 18+ months is a really nice amount of time to stress and overthink something. On Thursday, March 31, 2022, I took Tori's parents to dinner to ask for their permission. My struggle was finding a nice restaurant where we likely would not be seen by anyone Tori knows (which is way harder than it seems) yet still have a nice meal. I chose a restaurant called Pier 6 - it's about 30 minutes away from our home so I figured this would be a safe bet. Prior to dinner, Tori's dad met me at the Moody Gardens Hotel parking lot so I could park my car and stay with them for the night. I had to keep my presence in Galveston from Tori a secret. As Tori's parents and I were seated to dinner, I was stressing plenty, overthinking things that didn't need to be stressed about. Mere seconds after the server came over and introduced herself Tori's father said, "well, you called this meeting." Yes, yes I did. They said yes, and now to the part where Tori said yes. I was waiting for the "right time" to propose and at the same time I was waiting for the ring to be crafted. I finally decided on June 25, 2022. The three of us (Tori's parents and I) were definitely ready to let this secret go. As luck would have it, Casey, Tori's sister, as well as her cousins, Camden and Christine Snyder, just happened to be in town that weekend. The day of the proposal I told Tori I had to do some work from home so she left to spend the day with her family. I rehearsed my remarks at home and probably proposed to myself at least a dozen times in the mirror. In the afternoon, Tori called and said her neighbors had a private sailing trip they were unable to use and offered it to us. My plan which had been in the works for well over a year was finally coming to fruition. We obviously accepted this opportunity to enjoy "their" sailing trip they were unable to attend. I don't recall the temperature on June 25, but Tori made sure to tell everyone it was hot. She was correct. Tori's mom asked us to dress up so we could take a family photo on the sailboat. As were boarded the sailboat Tori again expressed to me her frustration about having to dress up for a sailing trip in warm temps in late June. Tori also reminded us that we were all sweating and the window to take this family picture was closing. Again, she was right, but since everyone else knew what was about to happen we again ignored her. As Casey took the helm of the sailboat and our song "just happened to come on," I got down on one knee and of course, Tori said yes! The sailboat dropped us off at Number 13, one of our favorite restaurants on the island where celebrated with family and friends. Side note: Tori's center stone belonged to her grandmother. I had a fear of Tori throwing up her hands and knocking the ring out of my hands (and then overboard) so I proposed with a different ring. Instead, I found a ring on Amazon Prime for $11.99, yes $11.99, and I proposed with that ring because losing a $12 ring would be much easier to replace than a priceless family heirloom.