WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!

Araya and Nelson met in the summer of 2018 through a mutual friend (heyyyy Jessica!) when she asked Araya and a friend to help lead worship one Sunday at her church. When they got there that Sunday, they were introduced to the band... all except the keys player who was running late. A couple of songs into the run through, Araya sees a "random" guy walk through the doors. Her initial thought? "Oooooh, he's tall." This "random" guy goes on to take the stage and goes behind the keys. Turns out he wasn't random... Nelson was the keys player! Araya's thought went from "Ooooh, he's tall," to "Ooooh, he's cute!" (Seeing him play keys may have had something to do with that thought.) After they finished with the run through for service, they were formally introduced. She heard his accent which sparked their first conversation. They had an almost immediate chemistry, and that's when their friendship began.

A few weeks later, Araya invited Nelson to “swing by” Nexus Coffee Creative in Downtown Little Rock because she was going to be "working on lesson plans there". There was definitely an ulterior motive in her asking. Yes, she was going to work on lesson plans, buttttt she was going to get there about an hour earlier to get the work done so she could spend the rest of the time hanging with Nelson. That was the first time they hung out outside of church. After some games of UNO and checkers and a *little* bit of flirting, they both left feeling like there maybe something more there. Neither of them would bring up this feeling for a few months.

They remained just friends(ish) until November of 2019 when they finally confronted the fact that there may be something more to explore past their friendship. There was an obvious connection that they ignored and everyone else saw. (People would just assume they were dating after just watching them interact with each other!) So, after one failed attempt at dating (*hehe*), they tried again in November 2019. They became “official” in December of 2019, and after nine months of dating (including MANY games of Sequence and UNO, pizza-making nights, picnics, and lazy movie nights), he proposed on September 5, 2020 at Connor Park in Little Rock, AR! Thank you for reading our story!