Wedding Date on Oct 28, 2017

We met in the summer of 2008, shortly after finishing up our freshman year of high school. It just so happened to be the day of the annual Dinghy Rally, in which all of us kids would jump on a raft and have a huge water war with all of the passing by adults. All it took was a giant blow-up cast (the aftermath of Troy's meniscus surgery) to catch the attention of Kayla, who thought he had to be crazy to be floating down the canal while recovering from surgery. The water fight continued, and we were eventually introduced. Little did we know, this was only the beginning of an incredible friendship that would later blossom into more. Believe it or not, our initial introduction was not the start of our "Happily Ever After". We spent the next 3 years as best friends, always laughing, and always supporting each other through the typical "ups and downs" of high school. It wasn't until January 5th, 2011 - during our senior year of high school - that we (finally) started dating. We dated for 5 1/2 years before getting engaged. Both of us moved off to Grand Valley State University, where we got to experience college together and grow in our relationship. These years of dating were full of new adventures, traveling, making new friends, and enjoying time with old ones. After college we both moved home and started full-time jobs - which also marked the start of a "semi long-distance" relationship - living an hour away from each other and spending most of our time together on the weekends. Life continued on as normal all the way up until a weekend trip to Mackinac Island...That last weekend of August, 2016 was the weekend we had been looking forward to for a while - we were finally going on a weekend getaway trip to Mackinac Island! We unloaded our bikes off the ferry dock and rode around before checking in at our hotel and getting ready for dinner. It wasn't until after dinner, after we changed out of our nice clothes and back into our tennis shoes, that we hiked out to Sunset Rock behind our hotel and Troy proposed. We got to spend the rest of the weekend celebrating our engagement on Mackinac Island, and it couldn't have been more perfect.