I knew Dave in high school, in a general sense: he played football, I was a cheerleader. We had lots of mutual friends. He was absolutely the underrated hot guy! I definitely noticed him, but despite him being in my general orbit, I never saw anything with him as a possibility. Blame teenage lack of self esteem!

Fast forward a few decades later, and we became friends on Facebook. This wasn't unusual, as it's a great way to connect with people from your past and present. We exchanged pleasantries on photo comments every now and then, as acquaintances do. He always had a nice thing to say or a compliment, and I always said "thank you!" and thought to myself "what a nice person." Dave tells me now that he was absolutely trying to get my attention... and it went right over my head.

Finally, in January of 2023, another comment on a photo (me commenting on his photo of a sunrise) finally turned into an actual conversation... that is still continuing today. He is the first person I speak to in the morning and the last before I go to bed. There is nothing that he doesn't know about me or my day or what goes on in my mind.

We met for our first date in Wilmington NC in March 2023 after hundreds of hours of talking. It was the perfect first date: comfortable, easy, low-stress and lots of laughing. We decided then to tackle long distance dating until we could figure out what the next step was. We had a lot of big, important conversations early on: where would we live, would we get married, did we want more kids, how do we do long distance? We've both lived a lot of life, very differently and agreed that open communication about end goals was important to both of us.

We moved forward, making sure we saw each other once a month at minimum and taking turns doing the traveling. Lots of FaceTime calls, random texts, cheap Southwest flights and patience has made it work. We got to know each others' kids and parenting styles. We learned we can both cook and actually (playfully) argue about who actually gets to cook, rather than who has to cook. From the silly to the deep and important, figuring each other out has not always been easy, but it's always been fun. Appreciating each other's different perspectives on the world is one of our strengths.

On October 14, 2023, almost 7 months after our first date, Dave proposed and it was the easiest yes of my life. Despite knowing "it" was coming, he still managed to make it a private, intimate surprise. It was so special and absolutely perfect. That is elite level, to me!

Now, we get to plan a day for you all to join us in celebrating what has made us so happy this last year. So excited to see you all.

Photos