We first met almost 4,000 miles away in London in March of 2023. We had each decided to go on a mission trip through our college ministries for spring break, looking for a chance to share our faith in a part of the world that neither of us had been to before. When we arrived, Cora from North Carolina and Luke from Minnesota, our schools met up in the airport. Luke noticed Cora the second she got off the plane, but she was too distracted trying to find coffee to pay any attention to him until later. The rest of the week we spent as much time together as we could, growing closer and closer, and before we left we decided we wanted to be together despite living half a country apart.

Over the next year and a half, we flew back and forth (a lot) to visit each other. We got to see more of each others lives and had lots of adventures. For part of this time, Cora was studying abroad in South Africa, and Luke flew all the way there to visit for a week. We found some elephants, surfed in Jbay, went whale watching, and had an amazing time exploring together. During the whole time we were long-distance we kept growing both closer to each other and to God. From early on, we knew that we wanted to spend our lives together.

In June of 2024, after we had graduated college, Luke moved to Wilmington so we could finally be together. Six months later, while visiting Cora's home in the Outer Banks, we were up on Jockey's Ridge one night when Luke got down on one knee and asked Cora to marry him. After a minute or two of saying "I love you" over and over, she remembered to say yes!