Every love story has a beginning, but ours kind of snuck up on us. Arletis and I first met when we were four years old, total kids, no idea what was coming. We were introduced through family, and here’s the funny part: my mom and her dad actually used to date. Funny how God works sometimes. For most of our lives we were just those two family friends who’d bump into each other every once in a while, nothing more, no spark, no story yet. Then her 15th birthday came around, and something shifted. There was no rush, no grand moment. I just started seeing her differently, and from there we slowly, naturally grew closer. Fast forward to the summer of 2021 in Punta Cana. It became the best summer of my life, right after the summer I proposed, of course. The days were packed: ziplining, buggy rides, horseback riding, jumping into underwater caves, the whole thing. But honestly? It was the nights I’ll never forget. Arletis and I would stay up talking for hours, completely lost in it. Just two 16-year-olds talking about our futures and dreams. We stargazed. We had a movie night. I had more butterflies than I knew what to do with. And somewhere in all those late-night conversations, we fell for each other. By the time that trip ended, we weren’t just friends anymore. In the years since, we’ve built something I’ll never take for granted. The biggest thing Arletis has given me is faith. She believed in God so deeply that it made me want to go searching myself, and through her, I found my way to Christ. That’s become the foundation of who we are together. We’ve grown up side by side, figured out what it actually means to know and love another person. We’ve had our hard seasons, the moments where it felt like maybe things wouldn’t work, but we kept choosing each other, every single time, and we always found our way back. That’s how I know this is the real thing. Which brings me to this past summer, the actual best summer of my life, when I got down on one knee and asked Arletis to marry me. After everything, after all those years of growing into each other, that moment felt less like a beginning and more like the next, inevitable step. Now we get to look forward. We can’t wait to say “I do,” to build a home and a life rooted in Christ, and to keep growing together the way we always have, through every season, every adventure, every ordinary day. If our story so far has taught me anything, it’s that the best parts are still ahead of us. And this time, I get to spend them with my fiancée, soon to be my wife.