The wonderful thing about marrying your best friend is that our story is as unique and precious as our love for each other. Brennan and I met back in 2021, in the middle of July during our pre service orientation for the new campus where we both got hired to work. I was a first year teacher and Brennan had been teaching music for 3 years prior at another campus. I had just moved to Arizona from California and knew nobody but was eager to form friendships. During preservice, I was hanging up a poster in my classroom when Brennan walked in and started talking to me about musical theater. He was looking for someone to help direct the school play, Annie, with him. Being an avid musical theater nerd, I was thrilled at the opportunity to direct a musical! Brennan and I immediately began forming a strong friendship during Annie. Our BFF, Sabrina, was also directing with us and we became quite the trio! We were all getting so close to each other, which meant I was also getting close with Brennan's wife Alison and Sabrina's boyfriend Chase. I, and whoever I was dating at the time, would hang out with my newly found friends all of the time. We were inseparable! Brennan, Sabrina, and I grew even closer over the following years. We hung out after school and became each other's people. I began to also fall in love with Brennan and Alison's two kids, Wyatt and Kayla. In August of 2023, things changed drastically for our friend group. Sabrina moved to Virginia, Alison (who was living with a terminal cancer diagnosis since 2020) passed away surrounded by her family and loved ones, and Brennan and I realized that life is precious and should be spent with the people you love and can’t imagine life without. During the time of Alison's passing, I was there to support Brennan, Alison, and the kids as they navigated the loss of a strong mother, devoted wife, and one of my closest friends. Alison’s memory will forever live in her family’s hearts and her kids will know just what an amazing woman she was. Brennan and I were already the closest and best of friends. However, our story began to change when Brennan approached me and asked if I could ever see him as more than just his friend. This is the beginning of our love story and the rest of our lives. You might be thinking, "Wow! That was quick!" And to your point, it was. Brennan and I fully acknowledge the speed of our engagement and approaching wedding date. However, we both cannot express how perfect we feel we are for each other. Our strong foundation of friendship set the tone for the intensely compatible, caring, and passionate love we feel for each other. We both feel lucky that we get to marry our best friend. Ever since Brennan asked me to be more than just friends, I have felt more complete and more loved than I ever have in my life. We both find joy, excitement, comfort, admiration, and fulfillment from each other. I can really understand why people suggest that marrying your best friend will bring you a lifetime of happiness!

Paige and I have so many things in common, which is why we became best friends to begin with. Some of these include our love for music and performing, the fact that we both chose to go into education, our love for being outdoors and enjoying nature, our competitiveness when it comes to sports and games, and our willingness to try new things and go new places, just to name a few. Once we had decided that being more than friends was the right thing for us and the kids, we enjoyed doing many of these things in a new way and on a new level that felt like it was just meant to be. One of the things we did was travel to Idaho to visit with my family. We were both excited to spend time on the road and enjoy the adventure of traveling together with the kids. My family generously offered to take the kids for a couple of nights to let Paige and I have our own time to explore. Since I knew this time would be really special for both of us, I decided to bring the ring that we had picked out together in case we happened upon the right moment. We had both expressed that we didn’t want the proposal to be anything grand or complicated. We were both happy with something intimate and special. On the last evening of our adventure together, we arrived at our Airbnb and got settled. As we lay on the bed, we reminisced about what a magical day we had eating, exploring, driving, shopping, hiking, laughing and much more. As we talked about how our situation would make certain things difficult for each of us in different ways, we both knew that we would be able to get through and make a beautiful life for us and our family if we were committed to loving and taking care of each other. As we both expressed our eagerness to make the other the happiest they could be, I felt strongly that I should express it in the most meaningful way I could think of. So I got the ring out, knelt at the side of the bed, and asked my best friend to marry me. I struggle to find the words to express just how perfect Paige is for me and the kids at this moment in our lives. One of the main reasons Wyatt and Kayla have thrived during this difficult time is because Paige has very seamlessly started to care for and love them more completely than was expected by anyone, including me. Despite the intense feelings of judgment and inadequacy she has had to deal with, she has shown a profound love for the kids and I, and would do anything to make sure we are as loved and cared for as possible. The last three years of our lives have been difficult to say the least. As Paige mentioned, life is precious and can be more fragile than we realize, which is why it should be spent loving your people to the fullest and giving your all to them. Not only has Paige been there to love and support Alison and I during our hardest times as an amazing friend, but as she steps into this important role in our lives, she continues to fill our home with her contagious silliness and laughter, her gorgeous musical theater singing voice, and the deepest most profound care and love that you could ask for in a mom and wife. I am so intensely grateful for the role she is so willingly accepting, and for what an unbelievably perfect job she is already doing. I can’t wait to marry my best friend.