Most 12 year olds don't walk into their 7th grade history class thinking that they're going to meet their future life partner, and well... neither did we. We didn't recognize how significant this meeting was at the time, but we did find ourselves thinking "huh, that person's alright" and developing a friendship. In 8th grade, we tried dating for a month before having the most amicable breakup ever. It went something like this: "Do you want to be friends again instead?" "Yeah, do you? "Yeah." "Cool. See you tomorrow!" And so, the friendship continued to blossom into best friends. Throughout high school we gave each other dating advice, took a lot of silly pictures, comforted one another through hard times, and loudly exclaimed "absolutely not" when our friends claimed that we liked each other or told us that we'd get married someday. Turns out, they were right. We wouldn't admit that there was something more until we were 20 years old and living in different states, but still holding onto our friendship no matter the distance. Entering a relationship with your best friend of 8 years is a big risk and not something that either of us would take lightly. After some back-and-forth, we decided to see where it could go. Now here we are, almost 9 years after taking that leap of faith, and 17 years after meeting in History class. As you can imagine, a lot has changed through all those years. However, the one thing that has never changed is that we are, first and foremost, best friends. Thank you for reading our story. We look forward to celebrating our marriage, love, and friendship with you on October 4th, 2024.