It's Happening!

In the year of our Lord 2016, Jewelle and Max were strangers living across the country with too much free time on their phones. One day, they found themselves in the same chatroom and immediately hit it off. Cue the silly pictures, dumb jokes, constant rants about school, and a weird feeling of safety and attraction that they didn't feel with their other online friends. So, they kept talking. Every single day. Suddenly, they had their first phone call. Then they started sending letters to each other. Then they started sending gifts for holidays and birthdays, and having planned gaming sessions, and bragging to their friends about each other, and...wait, are we dating? As of February 15, 2017, Jewelle and Max decided that yes, yes they were. Jewelle and Max were attached at the hip (literally, since they lived on each other's phones) for the first three years of their relationship. Ironically, the two frequently discussed marriage and children "for fun" before they ever met in person. As time passed, their love grew, and their patience to see each other in person shrank. On January 20, 2021, Jewelle left New Jersey to attend Rhodes College - with Max waiting at the front door of her family's Airbnb to finally see his girlfriend. More than half of the distance between them was erased overnight, and nothing could stop Jewelle and Max from seeing each other. The next four years were, in short, a whirlwind. With college classes, new passions, life changes, health scares, job hunts, constant moves, and a post-pandemic world to deal with, there was no shortage of things getting in the way. Despite it all, Jewelle and Max never stopped being each other's rock through the craziness of life. Every vacation together was a brief escape from chaos and deadlines to joy and laughter. Every text was a reminder of what truly mattered. After many plane rides, red-eye Greyhound trips, Airbnbs, and car rides in the pursuit of love, Jewelle's time in the South came to an end. The couple started their separate endeavors with graduate school. The plan was to complete their degree programs, find work, and start settling down once all was said and done. This, dear reader, was not God's plan. Jewelle went to D.C. and left her Master's program when it wasn't a good fit. Max went to Arkansas and left his Master's program when it wasn't a good fit. Jewelle and Max had a question to answer - why not settle down now? The two decided that it was finally time to prioritize each other and their future - together. In the late-night hours of March 31, 2025, Max asked Jewelle if she would be his wife, and Jewelle asked Max if he would be her husband. Shocker - they both said yes!

We chose to pick a new last name to start a new chapter of our lives. Cruzwil (pronounced cruise-will) was our choice. It's a combination of "la Cruz," meaning "the Cross" in Spanish, and "Will," an English and German name meaning "desire" and "protection." Together, the name means "protector/seeker of the Cross." What a perfect name to define our identity in marriage!