As many of you know, Matt and I had been neighbors, and our kids friends, long before this love story began. At about the same time a few years ago and unbeknownst to us at the time, the cracks in our previous marriages had begun to give way and we found ourselves single parents in the same summer. As we muddled our way through life trying to figure out our new normal, Matt and I found ourselves spending more and more time together. Our friendship brought comfort to both of us in a time of difficulty and pain. If you ask the kids, they'll tell you we liked each other as more than friends long before we ever told them (and really long before we ever admitted it to ourselves!) At some point, things just evolved into more than being friends and we found ourselves going on dates and spending as much time together as possible. We were navigating the world together and through our dating we began to learn what a healthy relationship really felt like. Matt asked me to marry him on Christmas Day. Our Christmas was going to be spent with both our parents and our kids but our parents ended up staying home due to our house having COVID. It still ended up being a pretty great day, and we were able to celebrate with our families after! We decided early on that we wanted to get married before we moved in together, but it didn't make sense for us to live right next to each other and pay two mortgages and two sets of bills. So in April of this year, we decided to hold a very small ceremony in order to get legally married. We still wanted to celebrate with friends and extended family, however, because we have had nothing but support from everyone in our lives. We are so grateful for everyone that we have invited to celebrate with us and we hope that we can all have a great time celebrating our families becoming one!