Will and Tara were first introduced in the summer of 2019 by Will’s cousin and Tara’s best friend from college, Megan. Megan had asked them both to be in her wedding, and then had the idea that she needed to set them up! She organized a weekend at her family’s lake house at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia so Will and Tara could meet! They immediately clicked, even though Tara was nervous and awkward and shook Will’s hand in the driveway and Will wrote "a handshake can change you're life" in Tara's phone (spelling "your" incorrectly). They spent the entire weekend getting to know each other and knew there was something special there! Will booked a flight to visit Tara in Pittsburgh a couple weeks later and the rest is history! At the beginning of their relationship, Will was still working out in the field and called Denver home while Tara was in law school in Pittsburgh. This led to a lot of cross-country flights. Once Will got transferred to Houston and the pandemic caused Tara to have school remotely, they finally got to live together. They shared a cute little 700 sqft apartment where they enjoyed cooking together, brewing beer in their living room, and lots of movie nights. Over the course of their relationship, Will and Tara have traveled a lot over the continental US, including two major road trips. In the middle of the pandemic in May of 2020, Tara flew out to meet Will in Denver and they did a cross-country road trip back to Pittsburgh before Tara left for Marine Corps Officer Candidate School. They also have driven all the way from Houston to Pittsburgh together! While all of their trips so far have been domestic, they are looking forward to their first international adventure together for their honeymoon (location TBD!). Right now, Tara is finishing up law school in Pittsburgh and Will is holding down the fort in Houston. They are very much looking forward to Tara graduating in May so she can move back down and finally live in their house together!

Will proposed on December 10, 2021 while we were on a trip to Colorado! I knew a proposal was coming at some point, but I had myself convinced it wasn’t going to happen on this trip, so I was totally unsuspecting. We had a pretty activity-packed trip planned (of course we did, because I’m a crazy planner about everything), but the second day of our trip we didn’t have much going on. The only thing I really wanted to make sure we did while there was go on a hike, so when we woke up to the first snowfall of the season, we knew we had to go hiking. Will’s dad, Shane, had the day off so we offered for him to tag along. At this point, I knew Will wasn’t going to propose because ~there was no way he’d propose with his dad there~. We arrived at the trailhead and we were the only car in the lot and there were a couple inches of fresh snow. As we were walking, it was actively snowing; it was absolutely beautiful. About halfway through the hike, I told Will that we needed to take a cute picture to send my mom. He found a good spot on the top of a little hill right off the trail. Little did I know, when I thought Shane was taking pictures, he was actually taking a video of us instead. When I thought we were done with pictures I told Will that I loved him and he responded with “forever?” and got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! Shane pulled out some champagne from his pack and disappeared into the woods and Will and I shared a couple special minutes together as a newly engaged couple! It was like we got engaged in a snow globe and it was magical!