Andrew and I met at the New Smyrna Beach Publix in 2018. I was 15 years old, shy, and didn’t like to talk to anyone. Like many Publix’s back then, we had a coffee machine and one day Andrew was told to show me how to clean it and put it together for the day. This is the moment we officially met and the start of our story. Since that day, little by little, we started to talk more at work. Months down the road our Publix was going through a remodel, so all the associates had to pick a store to stay at while the remodeling was happening. Andrew and I were fortunate enough to have picked the same store (New Smyrna beachside). At this point I had just turned 16 and was able to work more hours. Andrew was a cashier, and I was a bagger, so we had the perfect opportunity to get to know each other better. One night it was storming really bad, and it was time for me to go home. Andrew insisted on walking me out to my car with an umbrella in the pouring rain even though at this point we weren’t much more than friendly coworkers. After he walked me out to my car I couldn’t stop blushing and smiling. I went over to my friend’s house that night and I couldn’t stop talking about it. Time went on and we started to talk more and hang out with our mutual friends together. We would screenshot our work schedules and send them to each other to see if we are working the same shifts or not. We would go to lunch, go to Publix events together, he also took me to a Jacksonville Jaguars game. We had great chemistry together, but the timing wasn’t right as I was in a relationship that started before I had even met him, and he was busy juggling both work and school full-time. For years, my mom kept telling me to go for Andrew because of how sweet and genuine he is. At one point, Andrew and I had stopped talking to each other for almost a year, except for an occasional conversation at work here and there. After I finally ended my last relationship, Andrew was there to comfort me, and we were back to the great friendship we had not long before. It wasn’t long after that point he worked up the courage to ask me out on a date to a romantic St. Augustine restaurant and to be his girlfriend on April 12th, 2021. Andrew has shown nothing but love and I couldn’t imagine my life without him. We have been inseparable ever since, rarely spending time apart from each other. We have gone on many dates, played tons of Mario Party and even more pickleball, and have traveled all over the place on many vacations. Each moment is as exciting as when we first started dating. In May of 2024, we went on a cruise with my family. My mom and I were looking at rings in a shop on the cruise and I tried one on and I fell in love. I went back to the room and showed Andrew this ring. I deleted it right after I showed him because there was no way I was getting that one. Seven months later, on December 17th, 2024, he proposed to me with the exact ring I fell in love with on the cruise. He managed to go to the jewelry shop on the cruise and find the ring by memory after only seeing the photo for just a few seconds, bought it and hid it in his suitcase while we were still enjoying the vacation. That brings us to now, where we are getting married on February 12th, 2026 and we couldn’t be more excited to spend our celebration with all of our friends and family.