Jennifer works at the Spartanburg County Public Libraries as the Coordinator of Web Services.  She is the daughter of Rebecca "Becky" Land and the late Ronald Land.  She graduated from Dorman High School in 1997 and earned her Bachelor Degree in Business Administration from USC-Spartanburg in 2001 and her Masters in Library and Information Science from USC-Columbia in 2003.

John works at Lowe's as a sales specialist.  He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Foster.  He graduated from Dorman High School in 2001 and earned his Bachelor Degree in Business Administration from The Citadel in 2005.

John and Jennifer met through a mutual acquaintance, Tip Hall Jr. 

In mid October 2010, Tip contacted Joan Byers, who is in the church choir with Jennifer, to see if she could talk to Jennifer and find out if it would be alright to have John call.  Jennifer agreed.

John called about two weeks later.  With questions and comments during that first phone conversation like "How old are you?" and "Oh, so that's why I couldn't find you in my yearbook," it is amazing that Jennifer agreed to a dinner the following weekend.  Nevertheless, he sounded nice enough so she figured "why not" and accepted the invitation.

The blind date was set for them to meet on October 30 at 6pm for dinner at Shogun.  Surprisingly, the dinner went well and John and Jennifer continued on to Barnes and Noble to spend some time before going to see the movie Secretariat.  He followed her home that night, called again the next day, and the rest is history...  

John's birthday is April 6th and so he and Jennifer decided to take a quick trip to Charleston, SC to celebrate.  They drove down the morning of his birthday. 

After arriving in Charleston, the first stop was The Citadel where John gave Jennifer a brief tour of the campus.  He showed her the chapel, the library, his barracks, the mess hall, and the football stadium.

Then they traveled over to Mt. Pleasant and checked in the hotel, the Charleston Harbor Resort & Marina.  After a couple of birthday gifts and a walk out to the marina, they got ready for dinner at Hyman's Seafood on Meeting Street in downtown Charleston.

The wait was only about 20 minutes.  They had a wonderful dinner, a conversation with the owner, Eli Hyman, and then off they went to the battery.  Jennifer had asked if they could go for a few minutes (little did she know she was messing up a schedule).

It was getting later and the sun was beginning to set and John wanted to go to the beach.  Jennifer suggested they go the next day since they would have more time.  John insisted he thought they could make it out there.  So after crossing back over to Mt. Pleasant and fighting some traffic, they arrived at the Isle of Palms.

It was a little cool and windy so as they walked out to the beach, Jennifer asked John if he was cold.  He said he was a little.  She told him he should put on his jacket that he was carrying and he said he would in a minute.

The beach was quiet and isolated from the busyness of the city.  Only a handful of people were walking in the distance.

They walked down to the shoreline and the most beautiful sunset was painted across the sky.  John put his arm around Jennifer and asked if she really thought she could marry him, she said she thought she could, then looked back down the beach. 

Jennifer felt John take her left hand and as she turned back toward him, he was kneeling down holding a ring box in the other hand.  He asked if she would marry him and she said yes.  After stumbling around a little to put the ring on her finger, John and Jennifer stood and took in the gorgeous sunset, the moment, and each other. 

It could not have been a more perfect moment.

Afterwards they celebrated at a local ice cream shop with some birthday/newly-engaged ice cream.