07.16.26

Our story goes back so far that it is hard to pinpoint how it all began. To start, Fernando and I have grown up in Dover our whole lives, so there is no doubt that we may have crossed paths in school, at stores, or even on Blackwell. But we can both say that we officially met when we both joined the same church community in 2013 (Fernando was 10 and I was 12...). Long story short, Fernando would walk faithfully in the community alongside his family when I had a difficult time attending, which caused me to show up now and then for a couple of years until March of 2020. In 2020, I was 19 years old, and Fernando was 17 years old, and despite being in the same community for years, we did not build a friendship until 2023 (a long time, I know...I cannot help but think that Fernando looked intimidating, and I was very shy/quiet). Anyway, in May of that year, I would like to state that Fernando was the first one to take an interest in me that when I was away for a trip to Ecuador that month, he texted me saying how much he misses me and that he was in love with me for ages (just kidding, he did text me though to bring him back a souvenier). I came back from this trip, and we began to get to know each other more and hang out with each other, and thus, a friendship began to blossom - or so I thought. After a few weeks of getting to know each other, Fernando started to catch feelings for me and confessed his feelings one night after Tuesday's word celebration, but Katherine hated me and never wanted to be with me (<-- Fernando wanted me to include this part...). Anyway, I did reject him but somehow, Fernando never gave up and we continued to talk and feelings continued to grow from both sides. Feelings grew so much that we confessed our love for each other before we even started to date officially in December 26, 2023 (my birthday by the wayyy). And that is when we started to date as boyfriend and girlfriend until we separated in July of that year for 3 months. We can both say this time was filled with sadness and mistakes, but by the grace of God, we managed to find our way back to each other. Thanks to God, we both found the way to forgive and have mercy for one another to recognize that we are not perfect and that our love for each other was still there. From then on in November of 2024, we we able to rekindle the flame and overcome many more obstacles together, to the point that we both knew, despite everything that occured in our story, we knew what we wanted - to marry one another some day. Because of our faith and the love of God, those bumps in the road helped our love to grow stronger and deeper than ever before and we both know, without it, we would've never gotten to where we are. Thus, for months we knew we wanted to surrender to the will of God and be patient with the idea of marriage so we waited and waited and waited. Until July 20th of 2025, Fernando and I were offically engaged (I saw it coming thanks to me dropping hints on how I wanted to be proposed to hehehe)!!! From then on, this is where our story continues. We are beyond grateful that with God's and our families blessings, we will soon be two married best friends. We are incredibly thankful for everyone who have been part of our story and seen our love grow despite what got thrown at us. With God's grace and with His will, we cannot wait to get to the date where we can offically be Mr & Mrs. Palomares and we are excited to share this very special moment with you! With love, Katherine & Fernando <3