We met the beautiful night of June 19, 2009 at Dana's 19th birthday party. The party was hosted by her bridesmaid Moriah, and although the connection between us was strong early on, school took precedence. After 8 years of friendship, we decided to begin dating August 18, 2016 and it has been bliss ever since.

Assante went to pick Dana up around 11:00 pm on January 12, 2018 from the Memphis airport and on his way, approximately 6 miles away from the airport, his tire blew out. Unfortunately, it was a very cold and snowy night . The roads were iced over and the only option was to drive into the nearest airport parking deck. Dana was able to meet up with Assante as he tried to fix the tire with no luck. Even though the weekend started off bad, Dana had no idea that this weekend would ultimately change her life. Unfortunately due to the terrible weather conditions they were stranded at the airport for the rest of the night and at about 7am , a tow truck arrived. After visiting 3 different locations to try to replace his tire, Assante finally got it done. The two arrived back in Searcy, Arkansas around 10am and Assante had to completely revamp his proposal plan. With a lot of misdirection and a little convincing he managed to get Dana to the nail salon without the plan being uncovered. Assante also managed to convince Dana to join him for dinner with the help of his friends. That evening they went to dinner at the restaurant they had their first date. Assante had on the same outfit from that night and he got on one knee and popped the question. She said YES! The room cheered and a musician played “ Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” by Rod Stewart on his lovely guitar. They laughed at all the craziness of the weekend and realized that although the proposal didn’t go according to Assante’s plan it happened the way God intended it to.