Friends and family, due to COVID-19, we have decided to postpone our reception to September 3, 2020.

We met in eighth grade when we sat right next to each other in the "little kids" section at the high school homecoming basketball game. We didn't think much of it at the time, but we started chatting on Facebook shortly after that and hit it off!

We declared a warm September day early on in our freshman year of high school to be the "official" beginning of our dating relationship (although we'd been head over heels for each other long before that, as any of our close friends could tell you). Dating was difficult before either of us had a drivers license, so we only occasionally saw each other outside of school, but we talked late into the night almost every evening. We never got sick of each other's company!

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Whoever "they" are, they've never spent years 4-7 of their serious relationship away at college. Many, many tears were shed and lots of phone calls exchanged as we both navigated college 170 miles away from each other. We felt every single mile, but we thank God every day for guiding us through and blessing our relationship across state lines. Nursing school and Pre-PA kept our minds occupied and we're grateful for the experience, but SO ready to live under the same roof.

Having spent a wonderful week vacationing with family Up North at Higgins Lake, it was time for our last night to come to an end. Everyone else went to bed, but we decided to take a walk and enjoy the beautiful night sky. We walked along the lake for a while before turning around because one of us (take your best guess) was afraid of bears. We finished our stroll at the end of the dock in front of the cottage looking up at the stars and feeling a fresh breeze come across the lake. We had a deep conversation (those happen pretty frequently for us so it wasn't really unusual) and the last words out of his mouth were something about commitment when Ryan got down on one knee and our wildest dreams became a reality. We are so thankful for the good plan of our Heavenly Father who has brought us together. It is our sincere prayer that He will continue to lead us and be at the center of our marriage as we begin this next chapter of our life together.