Tate and Ava’s love story began exactly how all great love stories do: with a blind date set up by Tate’s mom. As Ava was trying out a new church with her sister, she quickly felt like she had found the one. (The church, that is… for now.) After only two weeks of attending, Ava met the pastor after a Sunday service-who just so happened to be Tate’s dad. What began as a friendly conversation quickly turned into something more suspicious when he insisted Ava had to meet his wife and daughter immediately. Enter the Zimmerman family meet-cute. Not long after, the Zimmermans called their completely unsuspecting son, Tate, to inform him that they had just met someone special and that he needed to meet her. After some very thorough Instagram “research” by an account Ava vaguely remembered as a strange new follower (shoutout to @tswizzy26), Tate agreed to take her out. There was just one small problem… Tate was in New Mexico 14 hours away. Ava received a mysterious phone call from her sister trying to set her up on a blind date. She was told that Tate was “coming home for the weekend,” which sounded simple enough-which was a mere 20 hours Tate was home for. Still, when he landed, he made every second count. Their first date turned into a full-day adventure: coffee, church, dinner, and dessert-none of which either of them wanted to end. The next morning, they squeezed in brunch before Tate flew back to New Mexico. And just when Ava thought the weekend couldn’t get sweeter, she returned to her dorm the following day to find the most gorgeous flowers waiting for her-sent by Tate, of course. From that point on, they talked and called every single day. Eventually, Tate decided that 14 hours was simply too far, and he returned to Orange County to continue his football career, and suddenly, the distance between them shrank to a very manageable 20 minutes.They quickly became inseparable, growing together, laughing together, and realizing that forever sounded like a really good idea-especially if it meant doing life side by side. And from a blind date, a little Instagram stalking, and a weekend that almost wasn’t long enough… the rest is history.