David and I met in January of 2021 at an RUF bible study. I wish I could say it was love at first sight, but the first time I met David, I truly believed he was ten years older than me. I'd never met another teenage boy who was so well dressed (or had such a thick beard) so it took me two weeks to figure out he was also a freshman in college.

We got to know each other over the spring semester and slowly developed our inside jokes during freshman bible study and talking in the Independent Presbyterian Church parking lot after RUF large group. After a week in Panama City for RUF summer conference, I decided David and I were good enough friends that I could ask for his number. But David left for several months of working at a summer camp (without his phone for most of the time) right after our beach trip ended, so he didn't text me back until August. I spent the whole summer hanging out with our friends from RUF always thinking "this would be so much more fun if David was here."

Once David was back from summer camp, we were right back at it like no time had passed. We were attached at the hip, texting back and forth all day every day & talking all through large group every Tuesday. It was no time at all before our friends were speculating that David and I must be in love with each other, but we always swore we weren't. Really, we were just best friends and it just looked like we were flirting, but we definitely weren't. (We were, and it's almost embarrassing how obvious it was to everyone except us!)

I thought David was the coolest person ever and I felt so lucky to be his best friend. I was always so impressed by how cool he looked with his leather jackets, combat boots, and dangly cross earring, as well as the fact that he drives stick and listened to cool music. But really I admired David for always being there, no matter what. One time, he came all the way to my apartment to kill a bug for me. If he was picking up food on his way over and I hadn't eaten yet, he would always bring something for me. Anything I needed, David was there and always so willing to help a girl who was "just" his friend.

For the next year and a half, we remained best friends and did everything together. We did our homework together most days of the week, which was usually more talking and distracting each other than actually doing homework. We ate dinner together nearly every day because if one of us was cooking, we always made enough to share. If David went grocery shopping, I always wanted to follow along because truly anything was fun when we were together. We even worked at the Starbucks on campus together for a semester. When David got covid a few years ago, he slept on an air mattress in my living room for a week while I took his temperature, brought him medicine, and made him soup.

We always denied any accusations of being in love with each other, until one night last March when we were up late talking as usual. We eventually ended up talking about how many people have asked if we like each other, and starting off swearing it was so silly and we didn't know what they saw. But eventually it turned to us both saying "sure, I've thought about what it would be like to actually date you" and "we're probably perfect for each other and if we did date, we'd probably be a perfect match." Until we finally admitted that yes, everyone else was right, and we'd been in love with each other for a long time.

We kept to ourselves for the next several months, mostly just enjoying the peaceful time of being together before anyone else knew (but also because we knew how many people would tell us "I told you so" after they correctly assumed we were in love with each other & we swore that would never happen. And if you know anything about David and I, you know neither of us like to be proven wrong!) We truly have so much fun together that it didn't take long at all to decide we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

A&D

Wedding Day