We're Getting Married!!!

Justus and Alyssa met through a choir that traveled for a week based out of Illinois State Baptist Association, All-State. Their first interaction was when Justus was still waiting at the church for his host home to pick him up. Alyssa was walking to the sanctuary when she ran into Justus and another All-State member. Justus was doing magic card tricks and asked if Alyssa would like to see one. Alyssa agreed and was amazed at what she had seen. About three months later, Alyssa randomly messaged Justus; the rest was history. They have been doing long distance for over five years, while both did school and the start of Justus working full time. They dealt with different time zones on top of the long distance. If you were to ask them, they would say the long distance has shown them what love looks like and that the distance has only made them stronger.

Alyssa and Justus had planned to go to a For King and Country concert the day before Justus had planned to propose. Alyssa was gifted the tickets for her birthday and they decided to spend the weekend together. Justus had surprised her by coming down a whole day early, little did she know he was scoping out a place to propose. On December 17, Justus informed Alyssa they were going to have a date day. After both of them had gotten ready, Justus told Alyssa she needed to put a blindfold on. An hour later Justus told Alyssa to take off her blindfold. Alyssa recognized it was Pere Marquette State Park, which she had shown Justus over the summer. Justus pulled the car over where there was a trail and got out of the car. They started walking down the trail and had to turn around because the path had ended. As they were walking back towards the car, Justus stopped and they hugged for a while. Then Justus stated he was taking off his jacket, threw it, and got down on one knee. They later on that night met up with Alyssa's family at the Old Spaghetti Factory. The next day they drove up to visit Justus' family and surprise them with the engagement and his mothers birthday.