Our story begins at summer camp! During the summer of 2023, Jaye Rachel was volunteering at Windy Gap, a Young Life camp in the mountains of North Carolina, and leading high school students from Charlotte. Caleb, who was on staff with Young Life at the time, had brought his parents to be adult guests at camp for the week and experience camp for the first time. Luckily for us, a few high school girls had taken it upon themselves to play matchmaker and were determined to set their leader, Jaye Rachel, up with “the guy with the mustache,” – Caleb! That night, they approached two of Caleb’s best friends, Preston & Bailey Griffin, for assistance in their plan. Before they knew it the matchmaking operation was underway! It turned out that Caleb had already left camp, but Bailey and the girls had conspired a plan, and she began texting Caleb to get him on board. Jaye Rachel has a video from that night of the girls relaying what had gone down and insisting that we were going to get married. We had never met and we didn’t know each other's names.

Although we were strangers, we had taken notice of each other prior to this happening. Caleb recalls seeing Jaye Rachel and thinking she was very beautiful. Jaye Rachel recalls seeing Caleb and thinking he was very handsome. We were off to a good start!

The Griffins had fulfilled their end of the matchmaking operation. Caleb was interested in getting to know Jaye Rachel and had hoped to eventually find a way to ask her out, but before he got the chance to do so, Jaye Rachel began their first ever conversation with “soooo should we go on a date?”

And so we did! On July 28th, 2023, we hopped on a boat and headed to a little Lake Norman island for a picnic. This was the first of our many dates on this same island. We both remember thinking things felt a little too good to be true on this date. It felt like we had everything in common. We enjoyed similar things, we laughed together, we talked about Jesus. However, the timing wasn’t great for either of us to begin a relationship, so we decided to pursue a friendship with one another and see where things went. It may come as no surprise that we became very close friends, very quickly…

It was over the many meals, wake surfing sessions, card games, and lengthy phone calls that we shared as friends that we began to fall in love with each other. We officially began dating the following February, and began discussing our plans to marry one another in March. We always thought people who did that were crazy, until it happened to us.

On October 19th, Caleb took Jaye Rachel on a date to the little island on Lake Norman as he often did. This time was extra special though, because he asked Jaye Rachel to marry him! And she said yes! The surprise of a lifetime. The moment was such a blur, but we both remember feeling an overwhelming sense of rightness. Everything in that moment was as it should be. The proposal was followed by sailing and fireworks. Magical!

Since October, we have been delighting in each other, preparing for marriage, and planning a big ole party, of course! Our prayer is that God will continue to weave incredible chapters of life into our story – chapters full of beauty, depth, service, and adventure. ¡Olé! We are counting down the days until September 13th. We cannot wait to get married and celebrate with the people we love.