Amelia's family moved to Columbia, Illinois just before starting 1st grade. Mrs. Hall & Mrs. Watter's class was where Darion and Amelia (and bridesmaid Blair) first met!

While they had been familiar faces for years, it wasn't until fourth grade that they became real buddies. It turns out when two music-obsessed nine year olds share the same homeroom, friendship is inevitable and semi-obligatory. Darion shared that his dad was in a band and Amelia compulsively recited every fact about The Beatles that she knew.

Yes, they were each other's first boyfriend / girlfriend. This relationship was just as much a result of proximity as it was bonding over strangely mature music choices. The bus dropped them off together - at the same building, wherein Amelia's mom ran her photography studio and Darion's mom lived. Loooots of sno-cone stand dates.

A majority of their school-age years were spent as good buddies. Amelia continued to help herself into his mom's loft for the occasional laughing fit and tried to make him laugh every time she passed him in the hall at school. Darion's first stop after getting his license was Amelia's house, so he could pick her up, immediately and explicitly disregarding his mom's instruction to stay in Columbia (sorry Tine). It was (and still is) a low maintenance, easy friendship. PS- Check out the "Gallery" tab for some photos from this time!

Amelia & Darion might have been the only people who hadn't seen this coming. But they're sure happy it finally did. Coming home from college for the summer, it was normal routine for A & D to get together outside of the whole-group hangs. This time, it just had a different feeling than the previous 10 years of friendship. They decided to take a leap of faith, jumping from friends to more-than-friends. Darion won her over through a late-night mo-ped ride through town. Their first "real" date started with coffee Francis Park, then stops at Record Exchange for music hunting, Crown Candy for milkshakes, and JJ Twigs for pizza & beer. He really pulled out all the stops. Darion asked her to be his girlfriend and told her he loved her on this same day- July 3, 2019.