Sometimes, the person you’re meant to be with has been right in front of you the whole time.

Joe and I first met in the fall of 2019 at a Husker tailgate. I had tagged along with my college friend Claire, who was meeting up with her now-husband and his friends—Joe included. As it turns out, most of his future groomsmen were there that day too. At some point, someone mentioned to Joe that I was into emo music, and apparently, that was all it took for a crush to spark. Over the next year or so, we kept crossing paths at wedding party events, group hangouts, and plenty of late nights filled with music, sarcasm, and dive bars. Somewhere along the way, we realized we had a lot more in common than we expected: values, family backgrounds, and a dry sense of humor that just clicked. Throughout all of this, Joe had been quietly harboring a crush on me. But after two years of friendship, the timing finally lined up. We were both single, and ready to see if there was something more between us. We took the plunge, and it didn’t take long to realize we fit together in a way that felt easy, natural, and rare. Five years after we first met, Joe proposed. When you know, you know.