Sup y’all. We finna get hitched

T’was but a normal Sunday morning service, I had come with some of my family, as was the usual. I sat down and on the worship team there was a woman who (I freely confess) took my breath away. From that point, I had an embarrassing crush. Well, I am not one to sit around on things, so I did what any rational and bold man might do and stalked her on instagram like a creep. Don’t worry, I did messaged her with TOTALLY legitimate questions that ONLY she could answer. We talked a while through the app and it was really great. I kept thinking to myself, “wow she’s really awesome”. That’s when it all came crashing down. She was in a relationship…oh boy. Well, I am no thief, so I guess I can close this book with a new friend and leave it there. That’s what depressingly went through my head as I tried my best to get her out of my mind. We held up a decent enough friendship and had a fair few interactions that I deemed pleasant, but a little frustrating, mostly because I didn’t want to be a cause for problems, but really wanted to keep talking. Fast forward to the following year. I had done a fair job of separating myself from my feelings for Erika. I was content to be friends and move on. Then, what was once a major crash and burn, was suddenly doused by opportunity. Through a series of events, not only did I find out that she was no longer in a relationship, but we wound up getting on the same film set together (a story for another time). Thoughts once dead were suddenly revisited. I didn’t really want to pursue said thoughts though. Too messy. Too complicated. I’m not sure. But I continued to pray about it. I decided to pray, “Lord, if you want us to get to know one another, then provide space for that, or an opportunity of some kind for us to talk” The day comes when we are supposed to shoot Erika’s scenes and I am loaded up with thoughts. I walk out to my car to leave…I have a flat tire. “Oh no…I really do need to get to set. What do I do?” Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. “I have to get to set. The crew lives far away. Erika is going to the set. Erika is close by.” I picked up my phone and did what I had to do. I asked her for a ride. Over that weekend of shoots and not having ANY TIME AT ALL to fix my tire, Erika and I spent near six hours together driving to various locations. Needless to say, I was won over just as soundly as I was before, only this time it was with greater knowledge and with more understanding. I found not only a beautiful person both inside and out, but a truly wonderful, generous, and kind friend who I enjoyed spending time with like few people I had ever met in my life. From that weekend on, I couldn’t let it go. I asked her if I could call her. She said yes. I asked her to coffee. She said yes. I asked if I could spend more time with her. She said yes. And later I asked her to marry me. She said yes. Words can’t do a woman like Erika justice, but that won’t ever stop me from trying. She is the most patient, hard working, diligent, devoted, understanding, kind, generous, sweet, funny, fun, thoughtful, wonderful person that I know and I am so thankful for her every day. Erika, I love you all the way and all the time. You are my best friend and I cannot wait to become your husband and make your life absolutely miserable. Haha no. It will be my great honor to spend my life cherishing, admiring, respecting, serving, and loving you. Life with you is simply better. Thanks for being you, for being my best friend, for being patient with me, talking through difficult things with me, laughing with me, singing with me, dancing with me, and loving me more completely than anyone ever has. And oh yeah…Thanks for the ride

June 9 2024: It was one of those crazy Sundays- I was on worship team, I filled in for scripture reading for someone that was sick, I met a bunch of people and I’m so bad with names that I had an entire conversation with a guy and when I left I was like, dang I have no idea what his name is. (Spoiler alert: This was not Jed) I get home to an instagram follow request and message from Jed Johnson. I was like “was this the guy I talked to today?? Should I say ‘nice meeting you today’?” I go around asking my family members if they know a Jed Johnson and they don’t but he had said something to the tune of “Just so you don’t think this is a weird stalker follow (uh huhhh) I have 2 questions” and he asked me about the worship team and about my acting experience. From then on he was the most fun person I’d ever talked to. He was effortlessly funny and charmingly dorky and I vibed with that. Now here’s the thing, I was dating someone at the time and I thought it was pretty obvious that I was dating someone because of my posts on instagram and I told the guy I was dating about talking with Jed and neither of of us thought based on the way he talked that Jed was interested. So to me, he was a friend who was so fun to talk to but I’d never met him bc we usually went to different services at church and I couldn’t tell based on his instagram and his brothers being at church which one was him. Until… July 12 2024: He came to see Much Ado About Nothing which I was in and when the show finished and I came out of the dressing room there he was on the other side of the room. I got nervous all of a sudden because I was like, sometimes people are easy to talk to online but not in person but nah, I said "nice to finally meet you in person" and I met his brother and sister in law and it was so easy. Why did I feel this comfortable with someone I’d never met in person before? It was the weirdest feeling. The next day he messaged me saying he enjoyed the show and asked if the guy in the show was my boyfriend. So then I was like, oh good he does know and I’m not leading him on or anything. Summer 2024: I was helping run theatre camp, he went on a missions trip to Kauai but we continued talking about all kinds of stuff- theatre, Jane Austin, Office quotes, you name it. By the end of the summer our conversation had died down. I was no longer in a relationship. What an interesting summer it was. Fall 2024: I was in a show and one of the cast members went to the same theatre school that Jed had gone to so I asked Jed if he knew this guy. Jed said yes and to tell him hi from him. This guy had no idea who Jed was and I sat in the most awkward silence until I found out that Jed had told him to act like he didn’t know who I was. I thought this was HILARIOUS. I told my mom about it and she thought it was HILARIOUS. This was my moms first impression of Jed. From then on, I very often found myself trying to find where he was sitting in church and the few times I did speak with him I was usually left laughing and thinking about how delightful he was to talk to.

Biiig Jump to Spring 2025: Jed had an film acting opportunity for me and I took it. He was also a part of the filming team and the day came for me to shoot my scene. I’m getting ready to leave my dorm and I get a call from him. His tire is flat and we have to be in Fountain Inn, SC in like 30 minutes to shoot so he asks if I can give him a ride. Absolutely I can. I had never hung out with him up to this point. I was once again nervous that it would be awkward because I don’t consider myself a good conversationalist but the conversation was so easy and fun. And we spent the evening filming and making fun of each other. Then came another shooting day which was at a location that was an hour away and we had to be there by 5am so I picked him up (tire still not fixed…hmm) at 3:30am and it was pouring rain… and there was a tornado warning…and we were in my little convertable roadster. “Livin on a Prayer” came on in the car and we sang it on the top of our lungs and I thought to myself, "oh my gosh, is this what its like to find your person?” And he promptly asked if liked him to which I gave a very long answer about my past relationship and I’m not ready for anything right now because that wouldn’t be fair to him yada yada and we actually had strikingly similar experiences. The rest of the trip we talked about anything and everything and realised right away that we had a whole lot in common. After the initial film shoot we had another location in the mountains to shoot at so that was another drive, a beautiful one at that and when it came time to drop him off, I couldn’t believe how much fun I had spending the whole day with this man. And as I’m getting ready to drive away he says if I ever want to grab coffee, he’d be down. Next thing I know we talk on the phone for hours, we text every day, we go on that coffee date, and another and another and another. Each time more lovely than the last as I get to know him better and better. We started dating officially and spent every free moment we could together over the summer which was a lot of time but it never felt like enough because we had so much to talk about, so many songs to sing, so many prayers to pray, so many swing dances to be had, laughing till we can’t breathe and it became every clear that I had indeed found my person. It was just “right”. I mean when you find someone as weird as you, you keep that someone. When you find someone that loves God and people as well as Jed does, as thoughtful, selfless, hard working, funny, encouraging, and dorky as Jed is you thank God for putting him in your life and hope to spend the rest of your life with him. And that’s what I came to realise. I also fell in love with Jed’s wonderful family and he loved mine which is such a blessing on both accounts. August 16th 2025 I was in a show in Colombia and when it ended Jed took me to Charleston where my family was. The next morning, August 17th we went for a walk on the beach, wandered around looking for Station 16 (because that’s the only place to see the sunrise apparently… and where a photographer was camped out), danced in the water, almost got interrupted by a cargo ship, and Jed said “screw it, will you marry me” and never was a question so easy or obvious. Jed, I love you every of the ways and every of the times. It’s been a wild ride- torrential rain, tornados and all but there is no one I’d rather go dancing through life with.