Our story is less of what we have done to get to where we are now and more of how God has worked diligently behind the scenes orchestrating our every little moments. If asked, neither of us could have told you a year ago that we thought we would be getting married in less than ten months of meeting the other person! But God knew, and He carefully crafted this story of how Montana met South Dakota.

Alana had attempted online dating before and found little success, but after over a year hiatus from it, she thought she would give it one last chance. She had heard of a Christian dating app called Upward that was specifically geared toward meeting others of similar faith backgrounds and decided to download it end of June 2023—two days before taking off to Wyoming for a week-long vacation.

Jeremiah had heard of Upward while he was out working in Vernal, UT as a contractor in the oil field. He downloaded the app end of May 2023 with the hopes of meeting someone who specifically lived within a 150 mile radius. Somehow and in some way, despite the distance between Jackson, WY and Vernal, UT being greater than Jeremiah’s preferred distance, he came across Alana’s profile, and we matched a few short weeks later.

Immediately, we both agreed that our intentions for dating were ultimately for marriage, and discussing “controversial” topics right away was necessary. We were both pleasantly surprised to learn that we saw eye-to-eye on every subject, even down to the nitty-gritty details of spiritual beliefs. Every conversation from that point on further solidified our confidence that we had found the person we wanted to spend our forever with.

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23