Danika: Our love story began at a popsicle stand in Farmington, Arkansas. Colin: An unconventional setting, but statistically speaking, an excellent environment for low expectations and pleasant surprises. Danika: Right before our first date, Colin broke his phone. Colin: Allegedly. Danika: It fell off his desk. Colin: Onto soft, fluffy carpet. Danika: And the screen broke. Colin: A tragic yet instructive lesson in Android fragility. Danika: Worried he wouldn’t be able to find me, he wrote down my phone number just in case. Colin: A prudent contingency plan. Danika: Except. Colin: I transcribed it incorrectly. A minor clerical error. Danika: Thankfully, his phone still worked, because he called me anyway. Colin: Against all odds. Technology made a rare, correct decision. Danika: There was supposed to be trivia that night, something to fill the silence if things got awkward. Colin: A social safety net. Danika: Instead, we immediately hit it off. Colin: And quickly discovered that neither of us actually likes trivia. Danika: So we did the only logical thing and walked over to his truck. Colin: Specifically, the truck bed, an underutilized venue with excellent conversational acoustics. Danika: We talked for hours and completely lost track of time. Colin: The trivia questions never stood a chance. Danika: Somewhere in the middle of all that, I carded Colin on our first date. Colin: An unprovoked but thorough background check. Danika: To confirm the extremely unlikely discovery that we share the same birthday. Colin: Not the same year. I remain the elder. Danika: He’s an old man. Colin: Seasoned. Deliberate. Occasionally correct. Between popsicles, abandoned trivia, and a truck bed that hosted far more conversation than intended, we realized this wasn’t just a first date, it was the beginning of something unexpectedly wonderful.

Danika: When it came time to choose a wedding venue, we wanted something meaningful. Colin: And something free from contracts, curfews, and exit times. Danika: We realized the place we wanted to get married was the same place we wanted to build our life. Colin: A rare convergence of romance and practicality. Both: So we bought it. Our wedding will take place on the property that will become our future home, where we’ll start married life, host celebrations, and argue lovingly over home projects. There’s no place more fitting to begin our next chapter. We can’t wait to invite you all into our future home, right before she officially steals my last name.