I remember the first moment I thought to myself, "This person gets me." We had only been working together for a couple weeks. My little jokes and comments that no one else noticed, made him laugh. If I had a wild idea, he took it seriously and made it happen. When I had a question, he would not hesitate to spend hours to really understand the problem before giving the perfect answer. He became my go-to guy, my favorite coworker, and eventually, my favorite person. We had everything in common. Not just our many interests, but our way of seeing the world and our approach to life, our sense of humor, and the kinds of things we struggled with. I would laugh myself to near-suffocation on a regular basis. When I took a vacation, I couldn't wait to go back to work so I could tell him everything. We would spend so much time chatting at work, that I assumed I must be annoying him. I would see him out at lunch and avoid him just to give him a break from me. It went on like this for years. But, little did I know, I was not annoying him at all. In fact, he liked me. A lot. I suspected nothing until, one day, I caught Casey looking at me in a certain way. Not long after that, I dared to ask him if he had feelings for me. Of course, he did. From that point on, we began to build our friendship into a romance filled with more respect, humor, depth, and love than I could have ever imagined possible.

What began as controlled, professional admiration at the workplace gradually devolved into a compulsion to share aloud every weird thought that happened to cross our minds. In more detail, I remember being so impressed by Abbey's intelligence and communication, and the humility and kindness behind it all. We would make time throughout the day to talk about so many things; mostly ridiculous interactions we'd had, or plans for hobbies or travel. It didn't take long to understand that we wanted all of the same things out of life, and that Abbey enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed hers. Eventually the circumstances were right where we could take the leap and give this relationship a chance, though there was no doubting it would be wonderful. I'm so excited to be marrying my beautiful best friend. It has been so fulfilling up to this point, sharing my days with a person who appreciates even the small things in many of the same ways. She has opened up the world for me, being a lovely travel companion, and listened to me with tremendous love and acceptance. Know that I am sincere when I say that I'm looking forward to our wedding day with incredibly warm feet.