As you might know, Andrew and Alyssa went to high school together. In the fall of 2018, Alyssa was a junior and Andrew was a senior. At homecoming, both wound up on the dance floor without a date. Alyssa, however, brought her best friend Kelly. The two were having a blast and dancing the night away, and kept noticing a tall guy with a lot of curly hair who kept appearing behind them. Funnily enough, Alyssa was convinced that this guy was wanting to dance with Kelly, while the whole time he (Andrew) actually wanted to dance with Alyssa. He eventually got her to dance with him for a song by the end of the night, but that was it.

Alyssa swears that she kept seeing Andrew in the hallways after that, even though she never saw him before. She continued to see him around town too! However, they didn’t talk again until they were both out of high school.

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Alyssa started attending Calvary Assembly of God Church in January of 2019, while Andrew didn’t start attending until the fall of 2020. In that time, Andrew and Alyssa both served different events (like trunk and treat) together, but hadn’t really met yet.

In January of 2021, Jeff and Donna Martin started a young adult life group to help the young adults in our community find others to connect with while still fighting with the pandemic. Alyssa attended with some of her best friends and Andrew attended with his sister. Lots of laughs and games (of course they weren’t competitive games) later, they still didn’t really connect.

Just a few weeks later, Alyssa signed up to attend a local worship night with some friends, and the invite was extended to Andrew. Mind you, this was something that everyone had to individually register for. Andrew, however, reached out to Alyssa via social media asking for details for the event. Alyssa responded and they really got to chatting. They talked about life, families, hobbies, and really became friends before and after that worship night. They got to connect personally and spiritually that night and didn’t even realize it.

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There was an unusually warm Sunday in March 2021, so mutual friends of Andrew and Alyssa took the opportunity to go to the park and play around the fields. As the afternoon progressed, the friends went home and Andrew and Alyssa were left alone at the swings. They talked about deeper subjects, life goals, and passions of theirs. Eventually, they went their separate ways in the middle of the afternoon.

Once home, Andrew texted Alyssa asking her on a date the following night, Monday March 22, 2021. Alyssa, however, was nervous and wanted to talk it over with her mom first (of course!). Her mom was on the longest phone call ever, so Alyssa waited to respond until after she was done. 2 hours later, Andrew was nervous and shaking like a leaf that Alyssa hadn’t responded yet, so he followed up with a message telling her that there was no pressure if she didn’t want to go. After Alyssa talked with her mom, she was excited to go and tried to ease Andrew’s anxieties about her late response!

The next day, Andrew picked up Alyssa and they went to Red Robin, where they had great some burgers! Afterwards, they drove back to town and Andrew paused at the Field of Dreams and put down a blanket so they could watch the stars. Between the conversation, Andrew’s heavy breaths and Alyssa’s fidgeting with the grass, there wasn’t a second of silence between the two of them. That night, they shared their first kiss with each other and started to really fall in love.

They even shared a second date that week and went roller skating and shared their interesting music tastes.

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One Wednesday night, Alyssa was serving in the youth group and Andrew was at Bible study. The day was so beautiful that Andrew decided to drive his 1969 Dodge Dart to church to show it off to everyone there. Afterwards, Andrew asked Alyssa if she wanted to go on a ride with him so she could check out his prized possession. They drove around until the car got hot, and wound up at Taco Bell.

After a healthy dinner, they sat in the Dart, in the church parking lot and just talked. Andrew talked about how he wanted his grandpa Vernon to meet Alyssa first, but he was confident that grandpa would love her, so he wanted her to be his girlfriend.

April 7, 2021!!

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After 22 months of dating, celebrating, adventuring, and falling in love, Andrew and Alyssa finally got engaged.

Everyone they knew constantly asked when they would get engaged. One day in November, Andrew went ring shopping with his mom, his sister, his brother-in-law, and his nephew. Not long afterwards, Andrew sat down with Alyssa’s parents to ask their permission for Alyssa’s hand in marriage. They talked, cried, and dream planned for the two of them! Andrew schemed with them, and picked a date in February to propose.

That February, Andrew asked Alyssa to a date day, because of how busy they had been. They went to breakfast, they did an indoor golf activity, bought some candy at Albanese, and let out a friends dog. As they were heading back for “board games”, Andrew suggested a walk around the Field of Dreams since it was a pretty nice day. They walked around the path, and as they rounded a corner, there in the grass was a heart made out of rose petals.

They approached the heart and, over Andrew’s shoulder, were two of their best friends hiding with cameras to capture the whole moment. It was sweet and perfect and everything the two of them wanted. Then they celebrated with both families for dinner and began the road to the wedding!

Andrew and Alyssa Helton : August 10, 2024