Forever & Allpress

Eean and I rode the school bus together from elementary through high school. As long as I can remember, I’ve had a “crush” on him. I would get on the bus about 40 minutes before him and nap during the ride to school. Every day, my friend Michaela and I would wake each other up before we picked up the Allpress boys, just so we could fix our hair and look decent when they got on. Throughout middle school, my crush on Eean never faded, though I was pretty sure he barely knew my name. One time, after a late dance practice, my dad, Mike, was driving me, Michaela, and Hope home when my friends mentioned my crush on Eean. Without a second thought, my dad pulled over at the Allpress house on the way home to talk to him. I was mortified and ended up hiding in the trunk of our suburban, listening to my dad chat with Eean from the driver’s seat. It wasn’t until later in high school that we started to feel the same way about each other. One random Sunday, the summer before my junior year and his senior year, Eean Snapchatted me about an Instagram post, and that was the beginning of everything. We officially started dating on November 18, 2018, when he asked me to be his girlfriend in his parents’ basement… how romantic, right? 😉 We spent the rest of our high school days together going to one anothers sporting events, fishing, hunting, and spending time together. After Eean graduated, he went off to college at South Dakota State University. That year was full of long drives back and forth for visits, leaving notes at each other cars, and tons of calling and texting. He managed to convince me to tour SDSU just once to see if he could convince me to commit there. Sure enough, after I graduated, I also attended SDSU, and that’s when we became inseparable. My friends were his friends, and his friends were mine. We spent almost every day together, whether it was hanging out with friends, fishing, shed hunting, or grabbing a campus meal. Eean graduated in the spring of 2022 and returned home to farm, while I still had two years left at SDSU, which meant more time apart. During my final semester, I student-taught in Appleton, which brought me back closer to Eean. It became rare to see one of us without the other. Then, just a few months before our 6th anniversary, on August 1, 2024, Eean FINALLY got down on one knee. He took me on a sweet flower-picking date, something we often did, so I didn’t suspect a thing. It turned out to be one of the happiest days of our lives. Now, we’re both so excited for everything ahead as we begin this next chapter and celebrate the lifetime that’s coming our way!