Joe McCalmon & Hannah Watson
Oct 8th, 2023
At deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
Lincoln, Massachusetts
Our Story
How We Met
We met on the first day of college at Wake Forest during our pre-orientation program: Wilderness to Wake. During our program, we traveled through the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to the Ocoee River in the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee. We went hiking up mountains, swam by waterfalls, whitewater rafted, and most importantly, we became fast friends. After returning to school after a week off the grid, we continued to spend time together going to orientation events and beginning our college classes. Only a few weeks into school, we started dating and have not looked back since!
The Proposal
During the spring of 2022, we went on a trip to Anna Maria Island in Florida for spring break with our suite-mates. Hannah had been looking forward to birdwatching in Florida since we booked the trip, and on the morning of March 7th, we biked over to Perico Nature Preserve to see what animals we could find. About halfway through our ride through the park, we stopped at a dock overlooking a pond. While Hannah was busy taking a picture of a fish through her binoculars, Joe got down on his knee to propose. He barely made it halfway through proposing before Hannah said yes!