Over a decade of love. Welcome to our love story.

When life gives you something special, hang onto it and appreciate it.

We learned that we shared a love for pizza. This led to having Adam as “pizza party” in my phone contacts.

Like a stereotypical teenager, Adam and I met up at the mall to hang out for the first time. I brought along friends as a precaution. Adam quickly fell into place, talking and laughing with my friends. However, it was the hug I received that made me realize how special our connection was. It felt like home.

Our first date was the following Friday. We decided to see Mockingjay at the movie theater. (Fun fact, I hadn’t watched any Hunger Games movies, so I binged them before our date… and accidentally did so in the wrong order). The movie was enjoyable, and Adam beat me at thumb wrestling many times during the movie. We took our first selfie next to a fake tree that would later become known as “Jay”. Going to the movies, sharing a popcorn, thumb wrestling when the movies hit lulls, and taking a picture next to Jay became our new go-to date night.

Adam and I were always friends first. We cheered each other on through lacrosse matches and dance competitions. We met each other’s friends and families. We formed endless inside jokes and gave each other support through hard losses. We celebrated high school graduations and college graduations as well. Overall, we just enjoyed going through life with each other.

We took on the same summer job and met so many incredible people. We found an apartment we loved dearly and upgraded to a bigger one when we were able to. We began building a life together as adults.

Over the years, Adam and I talked about weddings and our future. However, he told me that he wanted our engagement to be a surprise for me… My anxiety does not do well with surprises. So it shouldn’t be a shocker that it made me always on my toes for anything that could be deemed suspicious. Adam and I were at a point where I already felt like we were married. Marriage is special, and I will never discredit that. But marriage, in simple terms, is choosing to love each other every day, supporting each other, and building a life together. We were doing that. So when Adam mentioned spending money and that we hadn’t seen my dad in a while within the same week, I knew something was up. I also knew he wanted it to be a surprise, so I tried my best not to tell anybody I was suspecting it (and ultimately failed at that). The problem is that there were so many great opportunities for it to come up soon. Our first “I love you” anniversary, Christmas, New Year's, and our 10-year anniversary. Knowing my man, I was guessing either Christmas or our tenth anniversary, but as Christmas came, I just knew it wasn’t the day. The thing with relationships and plans is that life will almost always throw a curveball, and you have to support each other anyway. We were informed of some bad news that meant I would have to be out of state on our anniversary. Adam gets major bonus points for having to switch his plans. Instead, he asked me to walk the lights. I told him the weather was supposed to be rainy. He was pretty insistent that we should go if there was even a pause in the rain. (Cue suspicions). So after spending the day with his family at basketball and dinner, we set off on our walk. We walk through the lights display every winter, but normally it’s with his family. It was warmer out, and the earlier rain had made for a nice fog. When I commented on how pretty it was that the fog made the lights reflect on the lake, he knew it was the right spot for me. I don’t think I even let him get halfway through his speech. Love is patient, but I had been patient enough! It’s a YES. The rest? We’re working on writing that story right now :)