First fitness watch? (ladies pls weigh in)

I am looking to get a bit more serious about my running/health metrics and am considering getting a smart watch primarily for this purpose. I am not a professional athlete, obviously, but I wouldn’t rule out training for a marathon in the coming years and I’m getting to an age where I want to be more cognizant of my health generally.

My sister (not a runner) uses her Apple Watch for fitness tracking and my fiancé (is a runner) recently got a Garmin Venu 3S. They both are very happy with their watches and recommended them to me.

I’ve read a number of threads On Here indicating ppl generally prefer the Garmin watches to Apple Watches for running/fitness/health metric tracking.

My questions are two-fold:

Has anyone used both Apple and Garmin watches and preferred the Apple Watch? If so, why?

Has anyone used the Garmin Lily 2 Active watch and what did you think of it? Thoughts in comparison to other smart watches? I ask because my wrist is quite small and the Garmin Venu 3S looks a bit absurd on me as a result.

Thank you all!!