After months of hearing about each other, but never actually meeting, we finally met at our friend's wedding. Paul went outside with a couple of friends to meet this mysterious fourth roommate (a.k.a. Hannah) when she arrived for the wedding. There was an immediate attraction and we each found small ways to spend time together throughout the night. We sat by each other at dinner, watched the first dance of the bride and groom side by side, and then spent the remainder of the reception exploring the wedding venue (and there was a lot to see). At the end of the night, Paul rode back to Tyler with Hannah, and spent a little more time hanging with her and the roommates and very smoothly asking for Hannah's number so they could exchange pictures from the night. The very next day, Paul left the state for a week! (To visit family, but it's still funny.) To restart a conversation, he asked if he'd left his glasses in Hannah's car, knowing full well they were with another friend. After a couple of weeks of texting and phone calls we finally had our first coffee date at Starbucks and that was all it took. We knew from that moment on that we'd each found our person.

We had been planning to do a last round of presents after Christmas celebrations with our families. We decided to combine our last round of Christmas with a dinner date. Hannah is not good at waiting for surprises and had been trying to get hints for weeks about Paul's plan. Paul had managed to keep her on her toes and let little to no information slip. We had looked at rings previously to give Paul some ideas but Hannah did not want to know for sure what the ring would look like. After Hannah got off work on Saturday, Paul was getting everything set and Hannah was getting ready for a dinner date and presents. Once we were both ready, we did Christmas presents first. Paul opened his and then told Hannah that hers was a four part present. He had a box wrapped with a card taped to the front that said "open me first." Inside were all of the movie tickets that he had collected since we started dating. Inside the box were two shadow boxes and a multi-picture frame with pictures from some of our dates and of families and a note saying "room for one or two from our special night." He then played a video he had made with pictures from where we met, our first date, and other special moments, set to one of our favorite songs. At the end, it said "I have one more present for you." and he unwrapped the ring. He got down on one knee and asked Hannah to marry him. She immediately said yes and we went to one of our favorite restaurants to celebrate.