From Meet Cute to Marriage in Just a Year, 20-Year-Old Student's Whirlwind Romance Goes Viral (Exclusive)

Thanks to a nudge from her mom, college student Summer Waters Pfleger started dating Ethan Pfleger — a year later they were married

• Summer Waters Pfleger and Ethan Pfleger met in Aug. 2023 when she discovered her sorority apartment wasn’t quite ready, and she would have to stay in a hotel for a few days

• Soon, she and her mom spotted Ethan — and Summer began recording their courtship before they even became "fork official," one of the many cute moments captured on her TikTok

• Months later, Ethan asked Summer to marry him — and almost a year after they first met, the couple said "I do" on Aug. 10, 2024

It all started when Summer Waters Pfleger's mom spotted a handsome man behind the hotel reception desk and instantly thought he was boyfriend material for her daughter.

“She definitely encouraged me,” Summer Waters Pfleger, 20, tells PEOPLE. “I had walked past him so many times and smiled at him. My mom was like, you either have to get his phone number or quit talking about it.”

And while Ethan Pfleger, 23, admits he could tell there was something there, he says he "did not expect" that almost exactly a year after they met on Aug. 6, 2023, they'd by tying the knot.

Another thing he couldn't imagine? Summer's videos about their romance going viral on TikTok.

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Summer, a student at the University of Alabama, was just 19 when she discovered her sorority apartment wasn’t quite ready, and she would have to stay in a hotel for a few days. Her dad Matt booked them into a nearby hotel, but mom Melissa decided she’d rather stay at the Holiday Inn Express.

Call it fate or faith, Summer knows everything aligned for a reason and it wasn't long before she and her mom spotted Ethan — and started planning the best way to get his attention.

Like the fork story.

In an effort to get sparks to fly, Summer went downstairs to ask him for a fork knowing full well where they were kept. She expected him to walk over to get her a fork, while they would engage in some light flirting.

“We had forks at the front desk, but it was opposite of where I was so I was like ‘It’s just over there,’ “ he says, pointing to them before later realizing it was just a way to talk to him.

Summer’s mom waited in the elevator to get a report, only to learn that nothing happened. And that’s when mom told Summer she needed to be more direct.

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Summer began recording their courtship even before there was a courtship, and what ensued is enshrined on her TikTok. After her mom dared her to talk to him, she called down to the front desk to ask his name. Ethan also gave her his phone number, which led to her calling him. He, in turn, asked her out for coffee.

“That night one of the first questions he asked was if I go to church, and that's something really important to me,” Summer says. “We spent almost four hours on our first  date. We closed down the coffee house, then sat outside and talked for at least two hours more.”

The two became inseparable and soon became “fork official”.

“I went on Etsy and had a fork engraved with ‘Will you be my girlfriend?' with the date on it,” Ethan says. ”I said this is something you asked me for a long time ago and I didn’t give it to you.’’

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And when Summer turned 20 at the end of last December, Ethan asked her to marry him. The two continued with their studies, with Ethan pursuing an online degree at the University of Southern Mississippi in construction management while working first at the hotel and later for another company.

Summer, who had been participating in pageants and had even auditioned for American Idol, has set her eye on a career in country music.

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Ethan fully supports her entertainment aspirations (although he admits he’s more of a rock guy), but says he isn’t really interested in being a social influencer.

“I’ve dabbled with Instagram, nothing serious and I don’t keep up with people,” he says. “But with Summer’s video coming out and it getting big, it’s very wild to me. I have no concept of that reality.”

He says he didn't even know she was going to post them until their wedding day on Aug. 10. On their honeymoon, Summer says she nervously waited to see what the reaction would be from the videos when she finally posted her "wedding in a year" saga.

“The first day of our honeymoon, I posted it and looked at him and said I’d be shamed if this video didn’t blow up seeing I spent a whole year making it,” she says. “Then I woke up the next day and the video is taking off. This is wild.”

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Now, Ethan is starting to dip his toes into social media more, although he still plans on taking a back seat.

“I'll never forget when he finally downloaded TikTok back because of all this happening,” Summer says. “Once my video blew up, then he got an account so he could kind of watch and now he’s the one coming up with things.”

Ethan adds that a good thing about sharing their story is giving others a glimpse of finding love for themselves.

“I really didn’t have that much faith in the dating world,” Ethan says. “So hopefully this will get someone else to ask for that fork, or whatever, so they can be able to find love.”

“I’m excited to grow up and grow with him. I’ve always looked for an old-time love and I feel like we have that,” adds Summer. “I feel like us meeting at such a young age and being able to grow up together is going to be really fun.”

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