When Joey reached out to me and pitched his idea to propose to Flavio, I was SO impressed. He planned an entire fake event and made a flyer on Canva and everything to get Flavio to go with him to the Botanical Gardens without any suspicion. They had never been there together before and they don’t usually dress up, so he needed a solid reason to get Flavio there on a Thursday. The event was a mixer that a friend’s family had “extra tickets” for, and Joey even added the company logo to the flyer and created a fake email chain before sending it. Because this friend shares their iPhone location with Flavio, Joey even asked the friend to make sure she was at the Botanical Gardens at this time.
Y’ALL — this is setting the bar HIGH for other proposals!!!
And everything went off without a hitch. I was enamored by how precious they are together, and I truly think Flavio was shocked, even though he obviously knew it was coming eventually. They had rings already made with engravings inside for each of them, which they’ll wear on their right hands till the big day… which they’re thinking may ALSO be at the Botanical Gardens.
There’s so much more I could say about them as a couple, but I figured reading Joey’s words is way cuter than reading mine:
“We met the first week I moved to Athens. I really didn’t know anyone but someone from my program invited me to go play tennis. I remember seeing Flavio playing and thinking “wow he’s handsome, but is taking this game way too seriously”. Tbh we are both just as competitive with each other if not more now than we were before.
We’ve been together for 8 months but have known each other for almost a year. We were friends before we started dating. We’ve been through a lot in the last 8 months and every challenge makes us stronger, and I know there is no one else I want to go through the rest of life’s challenges with by my side.”
And with that, enjoy these joyful photos.
