To start off, if you don't know, I'm Zack Becker. It's wonderful to meet you all and have you at our wedding. To start this story, I have to go back to 2019. I was single and ready to mingle going into the new year, but was a super senior still in a college ministry. I was an old washed-up has-been... I was invited to a super bowl party being hosted by the Rock Campus Church and decided to go. I knew a lot of people at the party, so I went. While at the party, I was just hanging out and I noticed a cute girl with a mountain tattoo on her left ankle. Immediately, I thought, "She's outdoorsy". However, I knew she was new to the church because I was a pseudo-member of the church. I knew most of the people in the church and was known by them. So, I didn't want to freak her out by having the "outsider" talk to the new girl. Flash forward a couple of weeks after that, my specialty coffee addiction brought me Shortwave where she ended up being a barista. I knew I had to talk to her because she had a mountain tattoo and was a Christian. Over the course of months, I'd go in and we talked and chatted, but not much would happen. I had brought friends in while she was working and they'd tell me "She's into you man" (Janelle denies that still to this day). We hung out a few times then finally one of our mutual friends told me that I need to just ask her out. So, I did! We had our first “date” at Sparky’s ice cream in Downtown Columbia. We began to hang out more and more until my amazing looks and lumberjack body really wooed her. We finally sat down on a park bench we call the DTR (Define The Relationship) Bench and became official in our relationship. Here we are now, almost two years, later getting married!

I moved to Columbia, MO in January 2019 and started working as a barista at Shortwave Coffee. About a month later, I met Zack at Shortwave through my coworker and one of Zack's roommates, Than. As time went on, Zack would come in while I was working and sit at the bar and talk to me. It never crossed my mind that he was interested. In June, Zack started coming in more often (and I was still oblivious to his interest level!). On one of the days he came in, he asked me to go to Logboat (a brewing company in Columbia) with him and a friend. I felt uncomfortable that this might be a date, but told him I would think about it. I also made the excuse that I was tired after traveling to Colorado a week before. But, Zack got my number and said he'd keep me updated with details. I was supposed to hang out with my friend, Whitney that night, and when I explained to her that I thought it was a date, she convinced me it wasn't. Zack texted me later and told me his friend bailed so if I still wanted to go, it would just be us. I didn't really know how to respond. I had never gone on dates with a boy before Zack, so I felt uncomfortable. Plus, I don't like beer, which is ironic because we had just had a conversation about that! Whitney suggested I invite him to dinner with us at Buffalo Wild Wings instead. It was an awkward dinner, but I felt okay with it. I saw him a few more times after this dinner and started noticing he was interested, but I didn't know how to respond to a boy liking me. Move forward a couple months, and Whitney told me that Zack was still interested in me. So he did ask me on a date that night in June! She urged me to reach out and ask him to hang out, but I waited for him to ask me out again. I wanted him to pursue me. In October, he texted me and asked if I would want to get ice cream or drinks. On October 14, 2019, we had our first date at Sparky's in downtown Columbia and we made our relationship "official" in November.

Zack proposed on New Year's Eve 2020. I (Janelle) had no idea it was coming. We had talked about engagement, but had planned it for sometime in January. The night before New Year's Eve, Zack told me we could sit down in the next few days and plan all weekends in January so I wouldn't expect it at all. That whole week I had wondered if it would happen on NYE, but convinced myself it wouldn't. Our plan was to hang out with our friends, Nick and Haley, at their house. We were going to make homemade pizzas and play games. Zack told me he was going to set up his projector on the side of their house so we could watch the ball drop, which was all a part of his plan for the proposal. I arrived at Nick and Haley's after work, and when I walked in, they were hanging up a bed sheet in the corner of their living room with lights. Haley explained, "I'm making a photo booth because we don't have any group pictures together!" This was true, and I didn't suspect anything. Zack arrived later, and by that point, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it to midnight. After dinner, we dragged the guest room mattress downstairs to the living room and turned a movie on. I ended up falling asleep, but Zack, Nick, and Haley told me I was only allowed a quick nap. We got closer to midnight and the plan of projecting the ball drop wasn't panning out. It had started snowing/icing outside, so we stayed in. We tried to find the rerun of the ball drop, but to no avail. We found a countdown on Youtube instead that had EDM music in the background. Somehow, Zack and I ended up in the corner with the "photo booth", and I was actually scared to kiss Zack at midnight because I hate PDA. However, he still kissed me, and I turned around immediately to find Nick and Haley taking pictures and filming it. I yelled at them, and when I turned back around to Zack, he was down on one knee. I was completely shocked! I said YES, and I can't wait to hang out with Zack forever!