Our story began when a sixth grade boy passed along a note to a girl in class. The grand romantic gesture was a drawing of her with a patched eye and a mustache. By no means was it love at first sight for us, though Austin claims the pirate-portrait was a compliment. Our friendship continued to grow year by year, especially over our favorite classes drama and choir. We grew such a unique friendship that we even coined the catchy term "significant-other-with-no-romantic-correlations" because we agreed that the title "best friends" didn't quite capture us. Little did we know that these were the beginnings of God's much bigger plans for us.

Somehow swedishfish became a fundamental part of our proposal(s). The first proposal was for our sophomore homecoming. Over a text message, I casually told my close friend, Austin, to take me to the school dance. To my surprise, on October 7, 2014, he organized our theater teacher and my acapella group to line down a hallway while he stood holding a fish bowl filled with my favorite candy, the red swedish-fish, and one blue swedish-fish. In the bowl held a sign that read "Of all the fish in the sea, I want you to go to homecoming with me." Flash forward to July 2nd 2022, and Austin decided to replicate the proposal that started it all. He told me we were going to be attending his family friend's game-night party. He drove us down to a neighborhood I had never been before, and as he walked us down to their backyard he began speaking. Upon seeing the vacant yard that was filled with aquarium themed balloon arches and bubbles, I was immediately consumed by my emotions. Then, there at the end of the aisle of arches was an extra large fish bowl filled with my favorite candy, and a sign that read "Of all the fish in the sea, will you marry me?" I turned and there he was down on one knee with a little box in his hands. I couldn't hear or speak with years of loving memories flowering over me, so I gave him my hand. He asked, "is that a yes," and just as I had 8 years ago, I cried, "yes!"