We met in August of 2019. A group of friends were headed to Park City, Utah for the weekend. We were meeting at Riley's house to carpool. I got there a tad late and the car that was full of people I knew had no open seats. I walked over to a grey truck to throw my bags in the back. Riley was standing in the bed of it organizing everything. He turned around, reached for my bag, shook my hand and said, "Hi, I'm Riley." I shook his hand and told him my name while thinking, "Oh no, I'm going to be obsessed with you." It was crazy, but in that moment I knew that I was going to think he was hilarious. And I did. That whole car ride down to Park City I thought he was so funny, and the whole weekend I was so impressed by who he was. We got back from that trip and...nothing happened. We went on to be friends while I harbored a crush for the next 10 months. After no movement throughout the winter, I thought it would be wise to forget about the whole thing. And I did, for a little while. We went camping with friends a few times that next spring. After one of these trips in June of 2020 I hit a boiling point and couldn't take it anymore. I had to know what to do with this lingering crush. I texted Riley and asked if we could go on a walk and talk about something. (Truthfully, I didn't expect it to go anywhere. I just wanted this thought out of my head.) Of course, Riley knew what I wanted to talk about. Uninterested in dating at the time, he prepared to let me down as I made the drive over to his house. We went on a walk and I told him what I was thinking. He graciously told me it wasn't a good time. During that conversation we were both extremely honest with one another and showed great care for the other. Riley didn't want to hurt me and went to great lengths to honor me as he told me it probably wasn't a good idea for us to open that door. I listened, encouraged him, and didn't try to sway him. It was a little awkward, but we were both there for one another even in this uncomfortable conversation about our friendship. We concluded by deciding the best and safest thing to do was to keep things platonic. It was just too risky. I left this conversation feeling like the door was closed, but there was a tiny bit of me that still had hope. Two days later after a night of volleyball with friends, Riley called me. To make a long story short, he said that he thought we should keep the conversation going. We went back and forth on if we wanted to risk our friendship. This conversation concluded much different than the first. I recalled the risks that I had taken in the last few years and remembered how they all led to something beautiful. I said to Riley, "I know full well this might not work out and that would hurt, but it also might work out. And everything in my life that is worth anything has a pretty big risk attached to it. So I think we should just see what happens." We did, and it was the best decision ever. Over the past two years we’ve had countless hard conversations, come to know one another deeply, have become the best of friends, have grown a little too comfortable with one another (we are super weird) and now, we are counting down the days to our wedding. It was all worth the risk.