Everyone's first question when planning a wedding is always, "How did you meet?" Honestly the question itself always takes me a second because I wonder where to start. Like now, when writing this out for you guys I wonder if I should begin all the way back to when we technically first met at Boca High 14 years ago (man I feel old) or closer to when our love story began in 2016. Although that is when we truly reconnected and discovered there was so much more between us I feel like our different paths in life are also in a way a build up to our love story and what brought us together to be in a place where we were both more open to each others love. But for the sake of time and character limits I'm just going to start when things got a little more interesting. We had both graduated from our respected colleges UF (Go Gators!) and USF (Go Bulls!) and came back home for a couple years where we each had super fun times entering the real world work force. At this time, being that we both had many mutual friends we would hang out more and more continuing to build a friendship full of laughs and the occasional cheeky back and forth banter. It wasn't until I had made the decision to move to Tampa to pursue my masters at his alma mater that things really started to step outside the box of just friendship. My mother and aunt still enjoy bringing up how 'they knew' before we even started dating there was something between us from the day he helped me prepare to make my move to Tampa. And I guess mothers are always right since for the next 2 months Matt found himself frequently visiting me from Boca until he just so happen to found himself a job in Tampa and moved himself up there as well to officially embark on our whirlwind romance. Almost 4 years later, we've only grown stronger together, while recently moving our adventure and cute little (not all so little) furfamily- Misty, Bofors, Remy, and Lizzie up to Indiana for the next chapter of our love story to play out. -S

Everything just seemed to fall into place at the right time. In December I had made the decision and finally brought THE ring, the ring I had actually been looking at for a while now. Now for the waiting game. Waiting was no fun but, I had a plan which was actually to steal Steph’s plans. To explain I had just received word that I had received a long-awaited promotion relocating us to Indiana. Steph, wanting to celebrate my achievement, immediately made reservations at our favorite celebratory spot, Bern’s steakhouse, on the official start date of my new position, January 5th, 2020. Knowing that would be my best and only real chance at potentially surprising her, I decided that was my day. That night as we were getting ready, I found myself just watching her get ready with a huge smile on my face and immense feelings of happiness and ease and I just knew tonight would be worth the wait. As dinner was coming to an end, I excused myself from the table. Since Stephanie made the reservation, I couldn’t give them the heads up beforehand, so it was at this time that I explained my plans and requested our waiters help to propose. I suggested he offer to take a photo of the two of us. Moments later, he did so, and I got up and came around to her and immediately got down on one knee next to her. As the waiter continued to hold the phone up taking picture after picture, Stephanie just continued to look straight ahead until she got confused what was taking so long and glanced back at me only now noticing me down on one knee with a ring presented out towards her asking the all-important words, “Will you…?” and her responding back, “Will I what…?” With a small chuckle I completed the full statement, “Will you marry me?” to which everyone knows her response, thankfully! The whole night and rest of our evening felt perfect. We walked through the wine cellar, celebrated over some bananas foster, facetimed the parents, and went back home to snuggle up with the furbabies. -M