For Christmas, my dad purchased tickets to the Academy of Country Music Awards for my mom and I, which was held in Dallas, TX the weekend of April 19th 2015. Perfect, because it was an excuse to visit my grandparents and family in Dallas. Before the visit, my grandma apparently had been talking me up to my cousin, Spencer’s best friend and she showed him a photo from my Kappa Delta Spring Formal sophomore year. Ben was essentially living at their house because his parents had already officially moved to Massachusetts and he was left to pack up the remaining items from his home and to drive them in a uhaul from Texas to Massachusetts. He was moving the last week of April. The morning after the first day of the three day long festival, I woke up to several missed calls from Spencer between 4:00-5:00 A.M. because him and Ben had just gotten back from work and he wanted to introduce me. We did not meet until the morning of Sunday, April 19th, 2015, which was the ACM Award Ceremony. I filled my plate with Paw Paw’s biscuits and gravy because he only makes it when I am in town and then I finished Spencer’s afterwards. I remember thinking that this guy was going to think I was disgusting. He then went to sit outside and I asked grandma to go out there with me because I was too nervous. Once I was outside, every time he would look at me, I would look away. I sent video recordings of his British accent to my roommates and my friends back home because I just thought he was so cute. We only spent about two hours with each other and that was all that it took. We both had a feeling that that was not the last time that we would see each other. When I got back to school, my roommates thought that I was crazy because I told them that I thought that he was the one. -Alyssa

Spencer, Alyssa’s cousin was my first friend on my first day of school after moving to Texas and we became inseparable. A few days before Alyssa came down from Maryland to Texas for the ACM awards, their grandma showed me a picture of Alyssa in a white dress for her sorority formal. I told grandma that I had to meet her. Alyssa made it to Texas with her mum, Teresa. I had slept at Spencer’s House that weekend. When I woke up and walked in the kitchen, Alyssa was there stuffing her face with Paw Paw’s famous biscuits and gravy. Little did I know she would be my fiancé 3 years down the road. Alyssa came back out on the porch in this gorgeous blue dress ready to go to the ACMs, my jaw hit the ground. I turned to Alyssa’s cousin, Mikayla, with my mouth wide open and mouthed “wow she is gorgeous” I had never seen such Beauty in my life. We could not take our eyes off of one another as we all sat on the back porch just talking. -Ben