Our story starts in Key West, Florida.

I was invited along on a trip with my friend Evie. Evie’s sister Hannah and her husband Kevin had won a complimentary stay in a large house in Key West. They invited their friends and family. And Evie invited me. I almost didn’t go because of some demands at work and a stormy weather forecast, but my brother convinced me to forget work and go. And I’m so glad I did.

The aforementioned Kevin turned out to have a brother, Brian, who also tagged along on this trip. After a weekend of flirting, I made the first move when I told Brian “I think we should kiss.” He agreed. And so we did, right there on the dock by the water. And it was perfect. The only problem with my Spring Break Crush was that he lived in Florida and I lived in Tennessee, which complicated things a bit.

We got back home to our realities and I wasn’t sure where things would go, if anywhere. A little texting turned into a few phone calls and before I knew it, Brian had booked a flight to Knoxville. During his first visit, we jammed in as many ‘dates’ as we could. I took him to all my favorite local spots. We drove to the Smokies, we strolled through Lakeshore Park, we rode around with the windows down blasting Taylor Swift’s brand new album. We laughed. We talked. We had the best dinner of our lives at JC Holdway. And I think right then and there I started to fall in love with him.

We spent the summer flying back and forth to see each other (shout out to Allegiant Airlines) --each visit learning more and more. We talked a lot about our faith, our families, our dreams for life. We met each other’s people. We navigated long-distance challenges with relative ease, but it soon became clear that we didn’t want to spend that much time away from each other. Brian had listed his house for sale right before we met. It went under contract in July, and Brian started making plans to move to Knoxville. He would say it was one of the “easiest decisions” he’s made. And I’m so glad he did.

Since then we’ve found ourselves together more than we are apart, continuing to learn more and love more about each other as we go. I love Brian’s steadiness, his humble spirit, and his enthusiasm for the smallest joys in life. He is all the things I have prayed to find in a partner.

On Saturday, October 26, Brian took me to Lakeshore Park and asked me to marry him. That ‘yes’ was the easiest decision I’ve ever made! We had dinner at JC Holdway again to celebrate and toast our future together. I’ve never felt more seen, more celebrated, or more at peace than I do with Brian Edward Fortier by my side. I simply cannot wait to be his wife and love him forever. And I am thankful to the Lord for bringing us together and blessing us with this amazing gift. We’re getting married!! And I’m soooo glad we are!!!

I could tell you this story begins when I first met Sarah that beautiful day in the spring of 2024 in Key West, but that would be wrong. To understand the complexity of this story and all the pieces that God had to put into motion, I have to take it back a little further.

This story begins with the meeting and marriage of the beautiful couple Kevin and Hannah; for without them, this story would be just a fairytale. For context, Kevin is my older brother and Hannah is the older sister of Evie; Evie being Sarah’s best friend. Out of all the great things about these two wonderful dentists, one trait in particular is the reason our love was able to blossom. This trait is their thoughtfulness and determination to keep their friends and loved ones close. As I’m sure we can all relate, as we grow up, one thing we tend to lose is friends. People drift apart, get new jobs, travel, move, simply communicate less than they once did. But Kevin and Hannah continue to plan trips and facilitate situations where their friends and family can all come together. One of the most recent of these trips being a vacation to Key West in March of 2024.

I was living in Boca Raton at the time and was invited to tag along with Kevin. And Sarah, living in Knoxville, was invited to tag along with Evie. We had no idea what we were in for by deciding to go on this Florida vacation.

I would later find out Sarah was very close to not going on this trip. Being busy with work and possibly burnt out from the seemingly endless journey of meeting new people and trying to find the right person to match her exuberant personality, she was hesitant to go. As the upcoming weather turned foul, it seemed as if everything was going against her; what was supposed to be a relaxing trip to the beach, was turning into a rainy, tiring chore for the already fatigued marketing director. Confiding in her brother, Seth, about the recent developments, Seth provided her with the one sentence that pushed her to get onto that plane down to Florida: “A bad day on the beach is better than a good day at work." And so she clambered up the ramp to the Allegiant plane waiting to whisk her away.

I was on a much different journey at the time than Sarah. After fixing up my house in Boca Raton, I was primed to get the house on the market and find a buyer so I could get out of South Florida and head over to Tampa to be closer to the rest of my family. Working from home and doing a full remodel of the house in the suburbs took up most of my time those days and my social life had been taking a bit of a hit. The end of this chapter in South Florida was near, and outside of a little more experience removing popcorn ceiling and patching drywall, I didn’t have much to show for it. I was looking forward to getting away from the house for a bit, heading to the beach, and hoping to hear from the realtor about possible buyers.

I got to the house first. Strolling into another vacation as the third wheel with Kevin and Hannah and a car full of food and drinks, I went straight out back to the pool to start relaxing. Not long after, Evie and this stunning blonde woman started coming down the back steps to join the party. “So tell me your whole life story” was the first thing Sarah said to me. Admittedly I was a little flustered from this approach by the light-haired beauty, and probably started rambling about my job and the house a bit before retreating back into the waters like a Florida gator who got spooked by the flamingo lawn ornament.

Being the only two single people on this vacation put a weird tension in the air and a pressure to get her to like me, although I probably was the only one thinking this. As the weekend wore on, I was drawn to Sarah, and as the last night of the trip came to an end, Sarah made her move. She came up to me and asked if I wanted to go talk, out back on the dock, alone. I was pretty ecstatic about this turn of events and made my way outside. On the dock chatting about life and how the weekend went, we shared a kiss that was a bright spark on that dark, and somewhat cloudy, night.

The next day came, and everyone packed up for their own trips back to the airport or up the overseas highway. I was leaving the weekend with a smile on my face, but maybe even more prominent was the sense of uncertainty about whether this spark would be able to grow into a flame. This uncertainty was quickly growing until a couple days later when Sarah kicked off the conversation (naturally) with an innocent text during a girls' night that lit up my phone like the Fourth of July. And so it began, the texting and calling back and forth over the next few days into the weekend. The excitement of waiting for the next message to pop up or phone to ring grew more and more. I booked a flight just a few weeks after Key West to head up to Knoxville and see this girl that had consumed my thoughts ever since that kiss on the dock.

After that first weekend in Knoxville, I knew this girl was something special. She had paraded me around the city and shown me all the best spots as if she had been living there all her life. Originally from Atlanta, an exciting job opportunity had brought Sarah to Knoxville a few years prior where she quickly started a new chapter, bought a house and met some lifelong friends. Impressed by her knowledge and ability to turn her house into the coziest home in Knoxville, and blown away by her personality and charm, I asked Sarah to be my girlfriend at the end of our first weekend together. Capping off the weekend was a planned dinner at one of the best restaurants in the area, JC Holdway.

As I boarded my Allegiant flight back to Boca, I couldn’t wait until Sarah would be boarding the same flight just 2 weeks later to come down and continue our Summer of Love. Up until this point, no one had been able to capture my attention quite like this girl in Knoxville. I thought she was caring with her loved ones, determined and ambitious in her career, beautiful and tender both inside and out.

Back and forth we went, weekend after weekend taking turns on who was going to see who and whose family was next on the list to visit. Throughout the summer we traveled all over the east coast from Boca Raton and Tampa, to Atlanta, Knoxville, the mountains of Long Creek, and even mixed in a New York City trip for our 6 month anniversary at the end of summer highlighted by seeing Hamilton on Broadway. Our love grew deeper and more meaningful and finally when my Boca home sold at the end of the summer, I decided to alter my plans in order to follow this once stranger, now the love of my life, to Knoxville to give it a real shot.

Soon after the move to Knoxville, I knew she was the one. All signs pointed to it, especially the fact that I would still get excited and nervous on dates even though we’ve been on every type of adventure at this point. With the blessing from Sarah’s parents and a gorgeous diamond passed down from her grandmother, the proposal plan was put into place. Along with help from Evie and Sarah’s mother, I made a plan to go back to the place we had our first date, JC Holdway. Beforehand, I took Sarah to Lakeshore Park, where Evie and our friend Reed would be waiting to capture the moment. Overlooking the Tennessee River and the Smoky Mountains, I dropped to a knee and asked Sarah to marry me…she said yes, and our story has really just begun!