Julie and Chas can thank Chas' brother, TJ Matthews, for ultimately introducing the two of them! TJ and Julie, in a round about way, knew each other through girls that Julie had roomed with in college. After law school, TJ moved to Texas to work in the oil and gas industry, which happened to be the same industry Julie worked in. You could say they had lots of mutual connections. TJ and Julie were friends on social media when he saw that Julie was moving to Dallas for a new job in the fall of 2017. He messaged her saying that she should meet his brother, Chas, and thought they might hit it off. Moving to a new city, Julie wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to meet new friends, especially ones as cute as Chas. She told TJ he could give him her number.
A few days went by and Chas reached out. They exchanged a few texts and there were talks of meeting in person. They both happened to be in Houston for work when Julie agreed to meet Chas for a drink. They instantly hit it off and planned to go on their first "official" date once back in Dallas, which was to a Dallas Stars game.
And the rest, of course, is history.
Julie, being a huge planner, is nearly impossible to surprise, but Chas knew he wanted to do just that when he proposed. They had looked at rings, he had asked her parents, but Julie still thought a proposal was months away.
They had plans to go to Chas' hometown of Destin, Florida for a wedding in early October, 2019. Unknown to Julie, Chas would also be picking up the ring he had been working on with his family's jeweler. The minute he opened the ring box and saw the final product, he knew he didn't want to wait any longer to pop the question. He wanted to ask her while they were in Destin that weekend. During the wedding, Chas stepped away from the party to call Julie's parents and ask if it was still okay to marry her and if it would be okay to do it while in Destin. Of course, they both said yes.
The next morning, Chas was trying to come up with a way to pop the question. His mom suggested they all go canoeing from their house to a pretty spot where she goes to look for driftwood. So, with the ring zipped in his pocket, Chas, Julie and his parents headed off. His mom packed her camera "in case she saw any dolphins." The waves were pretty bad that day and Chas seemed pretty stressed for just a short canoe trip (Again, unknowingly to Julie, he was worried about the ring in his pocket). They finally stopped at the spot his mom mentioned and they got out to walk around. Completely unaware, Chas started pulling the ring out of his pocket and telling Julie that when he stepped away from the wedding reception, it was to call her parents. Chas got down on one knee, in the red crocs he was wearing, and proposed. Julie, in a bathing suit, cover-up and no makeup on (not at all how she would of planned her own proposal), immediately said yes through all of the happy tears. It was unplanned. It was a surprise. And it was absolutely perfect.