We met through the modern protocol of app dating. I was about to uninstall the app, actually, but thanks to some heavy-poured cocktails at a girls night, my BFF Renee decided to help me out with my profile. It was because of her that the profile prompt about collecting nutcrackers was added and that was what caught the eye of my future-wife. It felt different to me from the first messages. And I knew I needed to move quick. There was no way I was letting this one go - I asked her to go out and look for that year's nutcracker. Which we did. By the time our date was over, I knew in my bones that this was something special. That SHE was someone special. The next morning, I woke up, and knew she was the rest of my life. Now here we are, promising to do the rest of this life together. I'll save the rest of my feelings for the vows - but damn, I can't help but feel lucky every single day that I was the person she decided to say "yes" to.

I've found myself thinking countless times throughout our relationship that I wish I met Dani sooner, but I know that Dani came into my life exactly when she was meant to. Similarly to Dani, I had recently gone through my own string of awkward first dates and failed talking stages that had me ready to delete Hinge altogether. And then one day, a cute girl with a warm, soft smile and eyes that radiated kindness and a prompt about her nutcracker collection showed up in my likes, and I was drawn in. When our first date came, I told myself not to get too excited - I was still in the early stages of coming out as queer, and I didn't know what dating a woman would look like. But her laugh, her charisma, her gentle nature had me simultaneously weak in the knees but also so calm, all night. And it felt like the universe was sending me signs - we showed up to this date in basically the same outfit, we learned at dinner that both of our dads are farmers. After that first date, I tried to fight it - dating someone so open and authentic and kind. But then our second date came - a coffee and thrifting date on my 28th birthday, and Dani stood up to hug me when I got there, and then handed me a bouquet of none other than Taylor Swift's favorite flowers - hydrangeas, chamomile, and eucalyptus - and from that moment on, I was a goner. When I got home later that day, I posted a picture of the bouquet on my Instagram story and captioned it "I'm trying to play it cool, but I think I found my wife." After that day, "playing it cool" went out the window, and all of a sudden, all of the Taylor Swift songs I had spent years loving made sense, because now, they were all about her - "I once believed love would be burning red, but it's golden, like daylight" "And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you, dear - have I known you twenty seconds, or twenty years?"