After Ashlee's mom moved to Elkville, IL and SIUE was out for the summer, she needed a place to stay between leases. Ashlee decides to move back in with mom for the summer and start a summer job as a barista at "Penny's Perks." For weeks, all Jared and Ashlee heard about from Jared's family is how great the other one was and how we should go on a date! Both of us rejecting the idea several times to the family before even meeting one another. One day during a shift, Jared walks in to drop off one of the nieces at the shop; we see one another for the first time and both seemingly interested (even though we didn't talk and were super awkward towards one another) until one of the family member's, Ashlee's mom, had to scare Jared off by trying to force Jared to ask Ashlee on a date... We were forced to go pick out some Mother's day flowers for our families together and it was a very awkward car ride as Jared asked Ashlee what her major was in school.... even though Ashlee already knew that he knew the answer to it... He dropped Ashlee off at the coffee shop after picking out the flowers we wanted for our mothers, and finally the awkward encounter had come to an end. But Ashlee felt so terribly for how her crazy mom acted (we love her very much and she is aware of how crazy she is) that she reached out to Jared to apologize. The text turned into a conversation about being friends, which that conversation turned into our first date at Rend Lake where we hiked all the way around the spill way. That date turned into many more amazing summer nights together, until Ashlee had to go back to SIUE the following semester where there were COUNTLESS nights of driving 2 hours back and forth to see one another over weekends, long and late phone calls and texts, and lots of "I miss you" tears. All of the craziness of our love story has lead us to where we are now. I hope everyone can join us as we write the next chapter of our story on October 22, 2022 at the same place where we had our first date, so we can say "I DO!"