Sam and I went to high school together but there was never any romantic connection between the two of us during that time. After we had both graduated from high school on our first day of college he comes walking into my psych class and sits down across the room. I make eye contact with him and he immediately comes over to sit next to me! (this really helped calm my anxious first day nerves to have a friend in my class!) We became super close and would hang out together around campus. He would walk me to my next class even if it made him a little late to his... a TRUE gentleman ladies. "How did you not just fall in love with him right then and there?!" is I'm sure what you're asking yourself, but the Lord had some work to do in both of our lives. In a way I think that the Lord kept me from being attracted to Sam during that time because neither of us were ready for a relationship. Don't get me wrong though, I definitely acknowledged that he was an attractive man! I just never had the thought of the two of us being in a relationship, which in a way was a blessing because it never interfered with our friendship. Fast forward to that following summer, Sam went away on a missions trip to Tenerife, Spain where he really grew in his relationship with the Lord. This is where my feelings for him really started to develop. We would talk fairly often while he was away just sharing the amazing things that the Lord was doing there and continued the close friendship when he came home later that summer. That following Fall I decided to spend the semester in York, England going to Bible college. During that time I was able to draw close to the Lord and mature in my relationship with Him. Even though I was “across the pond” Sam and I still maintained a close friendship during that time and would talk almost every day. I came back from England in December thinking that the sparks would be flying immediately but Sam waited until the following August to ask me out on our first date!!

I have known Gab for close to 9 years, and our journey began with a foundation of friendship. We were friends all throughout high school, as well as a small portion of college. We started to talk more when college started and conveniently enough, we had our first college course together! I walked into my first class and picked one of the first open seats I saw. Once I got myself situated, I looked around the room and saw Gab. BOOM. I then got up from my seat and moved to an open seat next to her. Little did we both know, this was the starting point of something only the Lord could've put together. From there, our friendship got stronger and only continued to develop as time went on. Fast forward a few months, Gab would end up going to York, England for a semester of Bible college, and I went to Tenerife, Spain for a summer missions trip. We continued to talk a good amount via text message and the occasional facetime, as we went our respective ways for a period of time. During this time, I started to develop feelings for Gab and I really admired her love and boldness for the Lord. She was willing to listen and act on the plans the Lord had for her by going away to England for Bible college, which spoke a lot about her character and what kind of woman she was. She got back from England in December of 2016, and It took me a whole 8 months to muster up enough courage to ask her out on what would be our first date together, and one of the best decisions of my life. At that time, I was working for the Philadelphia Phillies and I knew that she was a huge fan, so our first date was a Phillies game! During the game, we were randomly selected to be put on the kiss cam in front of the whole ballpark. With the awkwardness that a first date usually comes with, you can already imagine how this went, but we didn't kiss;) Even though it was extremely awkward, it's fun to look back and laugh about, and it'll be a fantastic story to tell our kids one day. The rest is history!