Will Jackson and Farrah Mahan celebrate their love at Seaside Tennis. Photos by Anna Jackson
It was their love for tennis that brought Farrah Mahan and Will Jackson together. The two met on the courts of Seaside Tennis in 2010. Farrah, whose family is from Lexington, Ky., had not planned on finding the love of her life during a family summer vacation.
“My dad went to play tennis one morning,” she says. “And he returned to tell me he met a guy my age. So I went to play.”
Will, who is from Jacksonville, Ala., and whose family has a home in Seagrove, couldn’t take his eyes off the new girl at the courts. “I thought he was weird at first,” Farrah remembers. “I was more cautious. If it were up to him, we would have started dating that day. But it was nice that we did get to hang out for the rest of our vacation.”
The two kept in touch after their vacations, and over the years their love bloomed. One special night, while in Seaside over spring break in 2018, the unsuspecting Farrah and a nervous Will were strolling from Seagrove to Seaside for dinner at Bud & Alley’s restaurant. “We were walking the back roads toward Seaside and I noticed we were taking a detour toward the tennis courts,” Farrah says. “I was only thinking about food because I was so hungry. But soon I figured out what he might be doing.”
Will got down on bended knee at the Seaside Tennis courtyard, the lights glowing in the sky adding to the romance of the moment. Will’s parents and sister, hiding in the nearby bushes, took photos to preserve the event. And Farrah joyfully said yes to Will’s proposal.
After eight years of dating, Farrah and Will are working on plans for their Oct. 19, 2019, wedding at Point Washington Methodist Church and reception at Eden Gardens State Park. After the wedding they will live in Cincinnati, Ohio.
