It is August 2015 and I had just moved into my dorm at UT and received a text that a high school friend (Anna) and her new roommate were coming by to meet for the first time since arriving our freshman year. In walks Erin. “Wow, okay be cool Brandon. She’s cute!” I think. My first impression of Erin was that she was kind, friendly, a bit calm and quiet.
As the year progressed, Erin and I still see each other, hanging out with similar groups of friends. As such, Erin and I get to know each other more. She had this unique charm about her that interested me. And I felt gravitated towards talking with her more and more. Eventually, this interest grows into attraction and I try to flirt with her more often. One night, we are at my friend, Shane’s, frat house at a small get-together. I remember playing basketball with Erin, drinking and eventually…trying to make a “move” on Erin. Things got awkward, fast. The liquid courage did me dirty. Seeing that she was not interested in me, I moved on. I knew I was in the friend-zone. Though disappointed in that moment, it ended up better than I could imagine.
Throughout these later years of college, Erin and I continue to be friends, seeing each other occasionally.
Fast forward to senior year, Erin and I are seeing each other and talking more frequently than usual. I invited her to an organization’s “date event” to Wurstfest. We end up sitting near each other at the Big 12 championships in Dallas. We end up texting each other almost every day over winter break. Then, Erin and I end up traveling with a group of friends together to attend the Sugar Bowl. This translates to me falling asleep and snuggling with Erin after a long night out on Bourbon Street. But something changed after this trip. A familiar feeling returns. As a result of this increased interest in one another, Erin and I end up going on yet another trip, to Taos, NM, with her best friend, Aly. After this, I knew I wanted to be with Erin. There was this spark. This tension. This voice telling me to “go for it.” This feeling that we connected on a level that I had not experienced with another before.
Our last semester starts and we constantly are finding ways to see each other. At this point, I think our friends know something is up. I know something is up, but don't quite know what to do about it. Eventually, the stars align and after a night out with some friends, Erin and I share our first kiss. The rest of the semester, we foster and grow the love we have for one another. From first dates at sculpture gardens and homemade food deliveries enjoyed while watching the Bachelor - to discussing what we want our future to look like after college and helping each other figure it out.
As graduation nears, we go on a quick trip to Hot Springs, AR and there we confess this love to one another. Yay!
Then, life starts to move fast it seems. It was a time of great discovery and learning. We both live alone for the first time. We get our sweet pup, Maggie! We battle through pandemic times. We are figuring out our careers: myself as a corporate sellout and Erin working to earn her master's degree. We are figuring out our relationship: something brand new to either of us. We are figuring out ourselves.
Over these next few years, Erin and I settled into our relationship and we really started thinking about our lives together and how that looked for our future. We finally moved in with each other. There are many challenges we faced both as a couple and as individuals, but we navigated through this and grew, supporting each other along the way. We spend our time finding new hobbies, traveling and spending time with friends and family. We even became official domestic partners in 2023!
Eventually, discussions of marriage start becoming more frequent and something that we both are starting to look forward to. Then one weekend day, on a whim almost, we decided to go look at engagement rings together. At this point, I know I want to propose and it was good timing too. We had already been planning a trip to Spain a few weeks from now at this point. I remember talking to my parents, sister, and friends about how I wanted to propose to Erin on this trip and feeling the need to find a ring asap to get it in time. I then secretly visited a local shop when leaving my work office and secured a ring that ended up arriving 2 days before we left on our trip to Spain. Finally, the fun part. We go on a day trip from Madrid to Toledo, Spain. There atop a hill overlooking the beautiful city, I get down on one knee, confess my love, and ask Erin to marry me. And here we are, excited to spend our life together and continue our adventure of love!
We are so excited to get to share in this special moment of our lives with our friends and family this upcoming April. You are all such important people to us and we look forward to celebrating!
Brandon and I met in the lobby of Jester West - a freshman dorm on UT Campus. It was the week before classes started and my random roommate (Anna) and I were introducing one another to some of our high school friends. My first impression of Brandon was that he was cute, in a friend way, and nice, a little nerdy, and a little awkward.
Throughout our freshman year, we grew as friends. A group of us would hang out in my dorm’s lobby and all go to another friend’s (Shane’s) fraternity house for small but fun parties. On one of these nights, Brandon and I played basketball together in the back. After a few drinks, his ball-handling skills were a bit sloppy, but he was a good sport. Back inside, he tried to make a move but I got awkward and ducked out of our conversation.
He got put in the dreaded friend zone. And while it makes me sad to think about now, that our love story could have started there, I do think we needed the next several years to grow into ourselves before we were ready to build a real relationship together.
Fast forward to fall of our senior year. Past many perils socially and academically and existentially that we will gladly skip over here. Brandon took me as his date to an event at Wurstfest in New Braunfels. It was not uncommon to take friends to date events. But there was a little something in the air that evening. The slightest hint of awkward tension that I hadn’t felt with him since that first semester of freshman year. At the end of the night, we parted ways, but we stayed in touch a bit more than usual for the next several weeks.
At the same time, the Longhorn football team was finally having a good season. We traveled to Dallas for the Big 12 championship game and, although we attended with different groups, he ended up sitting right behind us. We lost :( But by an act of fate still ended up in the Sugar Bowl game. A group of us decided we were going to go and spend New Year’s Eve in New Orleans.
Several of our girlfriends dropped out last minute, but to my surprise, Brandon decided he would join us. We were on winter break at that point and had been talking almost every day. My mom told me she thought something was up. I told her no way, we were just friends, we had always been just friends.
We ate beignets and got tarot readings and went to Bourbon Street and watched the fireworks at midnight over the Mississippi River and Bevo attacked Uga and we won the game! One night, my best friend (Aly) and I stayed up late to watch a movie. Brandon decided that he wanted to join us and snuggled up next to me. I woke up the next day knowing that something had changed. Neither of us would acknowledge it for at least another month, though.
Before winter break ended, he tagged along on a trip to Taos (forever grateful to Aly for being such a good sport). And I remember thinking that he looked really cute in his beanie. We enjoyed a natural hot spring with nude hippies and I got horrible food poisoning from a burrito in Santa Fe (worth it).
By mid-February our friends were sick of us. Everyone knew that something was brewing but nothing was happening. It got so bad that after one night hanging out at Cain & Abel’s (our favorite West Campus bar), he walked me home and I fully expected him to kiss me goodnight. He did not. I got up to my apartment and decided that was it, I’d had enough, I was over it! Then he texted that he got hit by a car on his walk home (it was minor) but I felt bad and decided I would give him another chance.
Soon after that, we had our first kiss, after a friend’s birthday dinner (s/o Kay).
Then our first date at Laguna Gloria (a sculpture garden) followed by Brandon’s homemade tortilla soup.
We spent that final semester of college falling in love. And finally admitted that to one another on a trip to Hot Springs, AR the week before our graduation. He got nervous before he told me, in the way he did before our first kiss and at the party four years earlier.
Then we started our post-grad lives together. The first year included COVID lockdown. He had started his first corporate job and I was in grad school. We got Maggie our sweet pup! And learned more about each other and how to be in a relationship which was new for both of us.
The next several years were building years it felt like. We were both figuring ourselves out and working on our careers. We were navigating stressors and change and loss. But there was a lot of growth.
We started talking about the future and dancing around the idea of getting engaged. Which scared and excited both of us.
This past fall, we went to look at rings. I told him I was not particular and then realized that I was.
Two weeks later we left for Spain. I was talking to my mom on the phone while I was packing and she told me she had a feeling that he was going to propose. I told her, again, that there was no way. I would give it another six months, at least.
But, atop a hill overlooking Toledo, he got that same nervous energy that I had felt in him all those times before and then he got down on a knee.
And now we get to spend the rest of our lives together. I cannot wait to celebrate our love on our wedding day with all of our friends and family. And I’m so excited for all of the adventures to come!