The Dunlaps

The first question everyone asks: “How did you guys meet?” Well… our answer is pretty lame — we don’t really know! We likely met around 2013. Carlton was hanging out with friends in Charlotte at the time and became friends with my cousin, Haley. At some point, we connected and followed each other on Instagram. After years of sporadic comments and swiping up on each other’s stories, the frequency and length of our conversations steadily increased. On April 13, 2024, Carlton posted a picture of his family on the beach. Seeing his grandpa in a denim hoodie and his grandma’s gorgeous long gray hair, I just had to say something: "Okay, so they are/were hippies, right? They’ve gotta be so cool. They are so cool, aren’t they? I know it, I feel it." That conversation led to me giving him my number, which quickly escalated into three weeks of talking 20 hours a day across five different platforms, with seven different conversations happening simultaneously. We did our homework on each other, and then I told him about a trip I had planned to visit Charlotte the first week of May. So, we made plans to meet up and hang out while I was in town. We hadn’t seen each other in person in almost a decade, so it was unnerving not knowing if the vibes would translate to real life. Neither of us had fully acknowledged what was happening between us because we were waiting to see if it was real in person. But that night felt so natural and easy — like we had already been friends for years. There were countless moments where he read my mind or we freaked each other out with how many things we had in common. From the very beginning, it always felt like this was the end game for us.

The funny thing is, when people ask us when we fell in love, neither of us can give one clear answer. It wasn’t a dramatic lightning bolt moment. It was more like a bunch of small, ordinary things piling up until they became extraordinary. The way she scratches my back just right, the way she yells “eee eee” for a hug, or how she quietly makes life easier—like scheduling SMPW shifts and putting them in the calendar, offering to drive, or even telling me “good job” after a part or comment at the meeting, even though I don’t usually like compliments. And don’t get me started on her cooking—chicken piccata, Parmesan-crusted chicken—she knows how to make the everyday feel like a celebration. That’s just her: thoughtful, supportive, and a little stubborn about showing love even when I pretend I don’t want it. We’ve always had this strange, perfect alignment. Listening to music, watching sunsets, trying new food—from wings to Indian, Mediterranean, West African—it was as if we were thinking the same thoughts, appreciating the same things, reading each other’s minds in little ways that kept adding up. Every shared moment confirmed what we already felt: this was right. And then there were the bigger moments, too. The ones that didn’t need words. The quiet understanding, the laughter, the way it felt like home just being near her. We realized we didn’t want to just share these moments—we wanted a lifetime of them. And so, the decision to get married didn’t come as a shock. It felt natural, inevitable, a celebration of everything we already loved about each other and the life we were building together. It’s the combination of the small, silly things and the big, unspoken truths that made us know: this is it. This is love. And we can’t wait to keep choosing each other, every day, for the rest of our lives.