"Our 'how we met' story is not your typical story. It all began in October 2009 when I finally found the nerve to add and message him on Facebook. Tyler was the tallest, cutest, nicest, coolest, smartest boy in the 8th grade, and I had a crush on him ever since I laid my eyes on him in the seventh grade hallway. Had we ever talked in person before then? Nope. Did that matter? Also no. In addition to chatting on Facebook, we later got to actually know each other during junior-high basketball trips and high-school games where we would sit in the stands and talk about who-knows-what. I guess it was 'love' at first sight for me, but not so much for him--he played hard to get until he finally came to his senses on April 1, 2010 and asked me to be his girlfriend. (Why he chose April 1st, I will never understand; we still joke that our relationship is one drawn-out April fools day prank). The following months consisted of awkward encounters in the hallways, butterflies, nervous smiles, and me saying, 'sorry, my hands are really sweaty' when he would ask to hold my hand under the lunch table. A year later, April 2, 2011, we hung out for the first time outside of school, I met his family, and the rest is history." -Brittany ... “We met when I was in 8th grade and Brittany was in 7th. I was a stud in junior high basketball and she noticed. Not long after I created a Facebook account, she of course sent me a friend request. After many months of talking and a few times of shooting her down, she finally gave up on me. Then after a few days of no communication with her I realized I had messed up and on April 1st I asked her to go out with me.”- Tyler

"After Tyler got his first teaching job and as I neared the end of undergrad, I knew engagement was coming by the end of summer 2019. Because he lived in Iberia (a couple of hours away from where I lived in Branson), I figured that he would wait until a weekend to ask me. I looked for clues the whole summer, and let me tell you, Tyler did awesome at hiding it (until the end). On Sunday, July 14th, Tyler shot me a text and asked me a series of questions: 'what time do you get off work on Friday?', 'my mom is wondering if we are eating Pizza at my house Friday night?', and 'maybe we can see your old friends...Amish backroad ride?' (Yes, I am obsessed with the Amish). Right then, I knew it was going to happen because 1) Tyler never plans anything out in advance--let alone food and backroading and 2) his mom typically asks the day-of if we are eating at her house or not. So, that whole week, I was a giddy-mess. When Friday, July 19th arrived, I left work and headed straight to Iberia. My heart pounded the whole ride home and I shed a few (okay, a lot of) happy tears. It was finally happening." -Brittany ... “The day that I proposed I got off work and rushed home. Then when I seen Brittany, I instantly knew that she knew. She usually showed up in work clothes but she was dressed up. I don’t think we had a real conversation for the next few hours because we were both nervous. I was waiting until sunset. Then we went to Bennett Zink’s house which of course had kittens running all around. Bennett and I knew we had to move because of time so we tried to herd Brittany from the kittens. Then once again found ourselves in very short, awkward conversations until we finally made it to the spot. I was a little late getting to the spot because of the kittens and Brittany made a sad comment of, ‘the sun just went down.’ Then I stopped the truck, and grabbed the ring out of my toolbox and asked her to marry me.” -Tyler