In a school of over forty thousand students at Purdue University you’d expect your odds to finding your true love close to nil. However, this is not to say it doesn’t happen. In fact, I am speaking from experience. It was January 15th, 2014 when I first laid eyes on Steph and it took only a second to become head over heels for this girl. A girl I had yet to know would become my wife. From that point on we became great friends and spent a lot of time together studying, hanging out at parties, and getting to know each other. Friendship turned to romance and Steph and I found ourselves together during my senior year of spring break in Naples, FL where I asked her to be my girlfriend. Steph and I understood the risks associated with starting this relationship in my last semester of college, but our love warded off those worries. We were ready to take on the challenges of long-distance relationship. To most, distance is a barrier to success, but to us it only fueled the fire of our relationship. After about 5 months in Baltimore and 18 months in Chicago we found ourselves living together at Purdue. FINALLY, we were together. Our relationship had traveled leaps and bounds over the past three years and after talking with Steph I knew it was time to ask her Mom and Grandpa for their blessing. After a late night at work I made my way to Lisa’s. It was at Lisa’s house that I asked for her permission to marry Steph and it was welcomed with open arms. After gaining Lisa’s blessing I flew down to Florida to ask her grandpa for permission and he met me with an emphatic yes. This validation from the two most important figures in her life gave me the confidence to take the next step. On March 10th, 2018 I dropped to a knee and we took our next stop towards marriage, together. It was from this day on that our story moved to the next chapter. The chapter where we begin to countdown the days until she becomes my beautiful bride.