The summer after my freshman year of college, I was working at summer camps all summer except, I had a two week break between staff training at Kanakuk in Missouri and first session at CSA in Louisiana. I was staying with my parents for two weeks and downloaded Hinge out of pure boredom. Hinge has options to put conversation starters on your profile, so I added a prompt that said “pick our first date” then gave me 3 spaces to fill in options. One of my options was “Watch all the Hunger Games movies and talk about why Gale SUCKS” (this is a right opinion and I will take no criticism). This is the prompt Cooper chose to respond to. He said something about preferring to watch Star Wars or Star Wars being better, I don’t exactly remember. I thought his answer was unique but also I was kinda unimpressed— I didn’t know anything about Star Wars except its fans are all a bunch of nerds — but I checked out his account anyway. There was a picture of him at work with an airplane and I thought he was very attractive so I decided to give it a shot, but my hopes were not very high because I was leaving in less than a week at this point. We got to texting and he eventually asked when I was leaving. I told him that Friday, and he asked if he could take me on a date before then. I said yes and we went on our first date on June 12th. Flash forward and I had been at camp for almost a week with no phone. I had given him my camp address but with every passing mail call, and no letter from Cooper my hope was dwindling. Then, on one of the last days of first session Taylor randomly dropped a letter in front of me, said “he doesn’t write his 0’s like other military men I know” and walked off. I was happy, but what’s *one* letter? Well, that letter turned into a long phone call and that phone call turned into more letters and those letters turned into 8 hour trips to see me for just a few hours, and asking me to be his girlfriend. After 6 months of dating, Cooper took me home to Georgia to meet his family where he proposed !!

Like Erin, i downloaded hinge out of pure curiosity and boredom. My friends and I were having a normal guy summer of grill outs and get togethers. That all changed when I had the best match! I remember tapping away and there she was. A brunette beauty wearing a pink dress/skirt thing and a white top of some sort. All I could think was “damn”. Then I saw her prompt about Hunger Games….. Star Wars is better. I’ll die on that hill. Anywho, we match and started to chat. Erin intrigued me from the get go. What Arkansan has the hobby of surfing? Spoil alert, Erin did. As we talked we learned of our similarities like our love for sports, outdoors, legos, our respective fictions, and most importantly Christ. Which led to me figuring out she was leaving and soon. Erin was doing a great service of helping young people better their relationship with Christ and boy, finding that out was BIG points for her. Her love for her savior is a trait of her’s that brings me so much happiness and is a flex for me to share with others. With her temporary absence on the horizon I asked her on a date We went to Colton’s and I was disappointed in the food but not the girl. I remember how nervous I was and seeing this nervous and gorgeous girl getting out her car. Not much happened there, we just talked and then decided to sit at a park. The real star of the night was Walmart where we actually had a good time. Still a legendary site to us. With Erin’s time at camp in motion, I knew I had to lock in and wrote letters like I said I would. I wrote first and then she responded and it was smooth sailing. I had her on lock. What girl could resist hand written letters in 2024? I would drive after work on Friday to see her for 8 hours and that was if I was lucky. I realized I was in love on my second visit. Then I had knee surgery and Erin came down to see me and I knew I had to ask her to be my girlfriend. I mean come on she meet my mom, sister and GRANDMA. So we dated and did cute stuff together like movie nights, mini golf, couples trip etc. The longer we dated the more of hold she got on my heart and now I’m all hers and she knows it. We took a trip to GA 6 months into our relationship and I asked the woman of my dreams to be my bride and….. SHE SAID YES!!!. So here we are and we’re so excited!