Our Happily Ever After

When we announced we were engaged I had so many people ask why we were getting married. For one thing we were (and still are) young for the worlds standards of marriage, I'm 22 and James is 29. The day we got married however I was 21 and he was 28!

So many people, unfortunately, asked if I were pregnant. Which was not the case at all considering James and I waited for marriage. The comments and questions never bothered me though! I was and am confident we made the right decision for us. Plus we love being married! Sure, it's difficult at times but 99.9% of the arguments or difficult conversations that come up, are simply due to miscommunication. 

Our Story: 

In 2014, I competed in the Miss Georgia pageant where I met Patricia Ford Reeves, my sister queen. Later on that year at a pageant event my mom jokingly said to Patricia’s now husband, Seth, “Can you please introduce Caroline to someone just like you?” Seth and James have been best friends since their days in junior golf together. They went on to be roommates and teammates at Georgia Tech. James says he started to take notice that his best friend’s girlfriend was friends with all these pageant girls and thought he might he might be able to get his name out there somehow. So, on July 7, 2015 James commented on a picture where he saw my comment…knowing that I would get a notification that he too commented on the picture of Seth and Patricia. I did notice him! I ran to my mom and said “Look at this handsome guy that Patricia is friends with on Facebook! I think I’m going to add him as a friend!” Of course, my mom thought it would be best to wait for him to contact me, but I went ahead and messaged him making the first move.

In 2015, I moved to Orlando, FL working as a princess at Walt Disney World. On occasion James would text or call me and we loosely kept in touch. But, in December of 2015 James asked me if I would be interested in going on a double date with Seth and Patricia. I was so excited! I had been living in Orlando since August and had not been able to come home at all. I saw it as the perfect opportunity to come home for a visit… but more importantly go on a date with James! I bought a plane ticket, a new outfit, a suitcase, and headed home for 3 days to see James.

We decided to meet up at Café Intermezzo to see and meet each other before the double date the next night. We sat and talked for a couple hours, I was in love with him! He was perfect in my eyes and I was so thrilled to be seeing him again the next day. He, on the other hand, was not so taken with me and my facial expressions and enthusiasm about everything startled him a little! The next day we went to the concert had so much fun signing, and dancing to Christmas music and it was time for me to go back to Disney!

James and I didn’t text or talk much after those two dates in December of 2015 until I got a call from him the next month. He said “I’m in Orlando would you like to get together while I’m here?” We went to coffee one day, and the next day I took him to the Magic Kingdom for a fun date night. Of course I made plans to see him for the third day in a row! This time he was going to come back to the park and see me in character as Rapunzel! He never made it to see me that day but we decided to stay in touch as friends after that.

Fast forward to October of 2016 and I had just moved back from Orlando. I was in my room unpacking and watching Netflix when I got a call from James telling me he was in my neighborhood golfing and wanted to know if he could see me. I PANICKED! I had not even gotten out of my pajamas that day … I casually said “I’m out running errands! Can I come up to the club house when I’m done?” He asked if he could come to the house and I hesitantly said yes! Then I was in a mad dash to get ready, clean up, and tell my parents he was coming over.