I don’t think I’ve ever shared with you all how Zachary and I met so I thought Valentine’s Day would be an opportune time to share this special story on SMDC! We met move-in weekend of college and Zachary claims that when he saw me for the first time he had a feeling I was special. For me, I was too focussed on navigating college life to read into it much at all. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but five years later we’re engaged! Keep reading for the entire story…

SHOP MY LOOK

SHOP HIS LOOK

I think I can say that it all started when I moved to Florida to attend college in 2011, this was a huge deal for me as I had never lived on my own let alone 1,300+ miles from my family in New England. This move made the most sense both academically and financially for me to be able to get the most out of my college years and set myself up to be in a good situation when I graduated. I flew down with my mom and sister (and tons of luggage because I needed to pack all my clothes) and they helped me get settled. The University that I attended set it up so freshmen moved in about a week or so before everyone else to leave room for orientation, etc. This was great because once my family left it gave me ample time to put my feelers out and start to make some friends!

So I moved into my residence hall on a Thursday (I think) and it was that weekend that some of my new friends came up to my room to tell me that they had met this really cute guy downstairs and he was really funny, blah blah blah… I remember my friend begging me to go back downstairs with her to the commons to meet this guy and his friends. I begrudgingly followed her downstairs and proceeded to meet these guys (one of which was Zachary) and talk to them for a bit. I thought they were funny, but I was unimpressed because I was #toocoolforschool. Classes started up shortly thereafter and it was kind of all a blur, the first semester of college is such a whirlwind! I did become friends with one of the guys I met that day in the commons (Zachary’s best friend at the time) though, and found out that his friends (aka Zachary) didn’t go to our school. Zachary was actually planning on joining the Air Force, but much to my surprise Zachary came back the next weekend to visit his friend and he popped by my room to say hi. He proceeded to do this over the course of three months. He would come up to the school to visit his friend on the weekend and always stop by my room to say hi or have some lame excuse that he needed to borrow something like a blanket or a stapler. Silly me, I didn’t read into this at all.

Well, we started to become close friends by October and he was actually giving me dating advise on my relationship with my boyfriend at the time. Hilarious in retrospect. Things didn’t work out with that guy, but Zachary was still there! We stayed close friends for a good part of that first semester, and then he decided that he was going to enroll for the Spring semester which was great news because we would see each other more often! We were completely in the friend zone until Halloween weekend when we spent the entire weekend together, that I realized I liked him. I didn’t tell him I had a change of heart until mid November when we were on the phone and I said “Are you going to ask me to be your girlfriend or what?” He was speechless. Apparently he had no idea that’s what I wanted or that I even liked him like that.

We dated all through college, graduated together in May 2015 both with business degrees, and we decided to move to Tampa together after graduation because we both had promising job opportunities here. I was honestly so torn because I wanted to see where our relationship would go now that we were “adults”, but I really had my heart set on moving home after graduation to be closer to my family. The first 6-8 months in Tampa were very hard. I didn’t know anyone here, I didn’t want to be here, and it was awful. Things got better though, I met a bunch of friends through a blogging event that first year and I am still besties with a bunch of those girls to this day. We also got our dog Jax that summer we moved to Tampa which made my happiness shoot off the charts, then Fall 2015 we got our second pup, Henry. My heart was at maximum capacity (along with my patience for puppy potty training).

By the end of our first year here in Tampa it finally felt like our home and the best place for our story to start. In July 2016, Zachary took me out to dinner in St. Petersburg, FL and asked me to be his forever while we were sitting on a bench in Vinoy Park (don’t worry he got down on one knee). I said YES! Then the tears started flowing, then he told me that the center stone in my ring was actually a family heirloom that my mom gave to him to ask me with. I’m the third generation to wear it and that’s when I started to ugly cry. We’d been talking about marriage for years, I think we’d known that it was going to happen since probably our second year together. We wanted to wait to get engaged until we graduated, got settled into our careers, etc. Since getting engaged we’ve been mainly focussing on trying to buy a house, traveling, and trying to decide on what the perfect wedding day entails for both of us.  I think that this quote sums up our whole story because when something or someone is meant to be, fate will find a way.

“Where does a story truly begin? In life, there are seldom clear-cut beginnings, those moments when we can, in looking back, say that everything started. Yet there are moments when fate intersects with our daily lives, setting in motion a sequence of events whose outcome we could never have foreseen.” -Nicholas Sparks

If you’ve kept reading to the end, bless your heart! I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to stop by and I hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day! Xo

Photos by Sandra Morlet Photography

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE:

10 Things About Me Wedding Planning: What We Had Originally Planned and What Actually Happened Questions & Answers Life Lately: Goodbye 2015!