Hello, our lovely friends and family! Ashlee here to tell you about our love story. I think our story is sweet and romantic, although some of it seems to have worked out by sheer luck and happenstance, so I'd like to think that the world wanted us together, since it was almost entirely unintentional that we started dating in the first place. I feel incredibly lucky and happy that it ended up working out, though!

Often, Charlie and I will get asked how we met, and the answer to that is that we met in high school. Usually, that leads to the follow-up question of "Oh, were you high school sweethearts?" And I think people are a little surprised and disappointed to find that the answer to that is no, we weren't; however, we were friends in high school, and I did have a bit of a crush on Charlie for most of the duration of being in high school, although I didn't do much about it as I wasn't confident enough then to ask him out, and I had hoped he would eventually ask me out. At the very least, I did manage to work up the courage to ask him to go to our sophomore Husky Howl together, which we dressed up as crayons for, so if you squint hard and tilt your head, you could maybe pretend that we were high school sweethearts.

* * *

We have debated on several occasions exactly how we ended up becoming friends and in which class we became friends. As far as we can tell, it was sophomore year in Edmund's honors English class, although the exact details of how the relationship came to be are fuzzy. The relationship seemed to gradually grow out of nowhere, and now, looking back, it seems to me that we were friends from the start, with no rhyme or reason for becoming so.

* * *

Apart from that first English class with Edmunds, we had a handful of classes together, including yoga, junior year honors English, AP Literature, AP Chemistry, and AP Statistics. We were also both in the ensemble of Hairspray our sophomore year, and we acted in our friend Emma's short film for the film competition our sophomore year. We were also both members of Link Crew our junior year, although the school decided to get rid of the program by our senior year.

For the longest time, I would have told you that my favorite romance trope is enemies to lovers, but since mine and Charlie's story is friends to lovers, I have decided that is now my favorite trope. Now, you may be wondering exactly how we went from friends to dating, so allow me to elaborate.

* * *

Charlie and I didn't stay that close after high school, but I kept forcing my friendship on him, texting him maybe half a dozen times a year to wish him well on various holidays and ask him what he was up to, which would lead to some short back and forth on how each other's lives were going, and I think we did get slowly a bit closer through these text conversations, although the thought of dating him had somewhat fled my mind after we graduated high school, and I don't think either of us had really been looking for a relationship when we started to spend time together.

* * *

For a long time, I thought that Charlie made the first move in us dating, but later, I realized that it was actually me, and even though I would like to take credit and say that it was an intentional move, I frankly completely accidentally asked him out. At least, I think it probably came off as me asking him out. My family had tickets to Red Butte Gardens' Garden After Dark in October of 2022, and we had been hoping that Karoleena would be able to come, but she was stuck in the hospital, and my parents asked me to see if I could find someone to come instead. In a futile attempt to get someone to use the ticket, I went through almost every single one of my contacts, asking them to join us. I ultimately was unable to find someone to take the ticket, but when I asked Charlie, he politely declined but said that we should do something another time.

* * *

It was a few weeks later that I texted him on Halloween to wish him well and see how he was doing. He then asked me if I would like to get together sometime that week or the next week, which I happily said yes to. Later, I started wondering if Charlie was asking me out, although Karoleena insisted that I was jumping to conclusions. It was also him asking for this hangout that made me think that he made the first move. A couple of days later, he joined me and a couple of my friends from Lagoon for karaoke, which ended with Charlie and me catching up some when he drove me home, since my friends had picked me up, but they were tired and wanted to get home.

* * *

It was another several weeks before we hung out again, and I must give Charlie the credit this time for continuing to push the relationship, since I had fairly dropped off the face of the map after Karoleena passed away. I had told him about her passing, and he had immediately asked if there was anything he could do, and I unhelpfully didn't give him much of anything to do. Fortunately, he is extremely sweet, and in the middle of December, he decided that he wanted to come check in on me, so we made lunch together on a random Tuesday, and he tried to ask me how I was doing, which I mostly brushed off, and then we played board games for hours, and he got me laughing the hardest I had in a long time.

* * *

Being with Charlie on that random Tuesday made me feel better than I had in a long time, so we kept hanging out after that. Admittedly, I blew off a couple of our hangouts at the last minute, despite being the one who asked him, so it's a good thing that I wasn't thinking hard enough to realize that I was asking him out, and he was sweet enough to keep saying yes even after I blew him off.

* * *

Eventually, in the spring of 2024, I finally realized that I had been basically asking him out for months, but, still unsure if he thought we were dating or just hanging out, I started more intentionally asking him out, and slowly, our hangouts became a little more date-like until we both concluded that we were, in fact, dating. It is somewhat difficult to pin down exactly when we became official. Ultimately, we decided on June 6th. We spent almost that whole day together going to a farmers market, a craft fair, and playing Mario Kart.

* * *

From there, we had our ups and downs, learning how to navigate being a couple and figuring out parts of ourselves. These ups and downs were difficult, but as with most trials, we came out stronger, loving each other even more after seeing the raw parts of us laid bare for the other. We spent longer than many Utah couples do in the dating stage (about a year and a half), although we were both readily talking about how excited we were for all aspects of our future for months before Charlie actually proposed.

Charlie proposed on Christmas Eve. I had started to suspect him a couple of weeks before he proposed, and I was extremely excited. Somehow, I managed to mostly avoid telling anyone that I suspected him despite wanting to scream it to the world. I first started suspecting Charlie about a week and a half prior to him proposing, as he suggested we get our nails done the week before Christmas Eve, and he told me that I couldn't look at his text messages with a few people I knew would be involved in his proposing. So when he asked if I wanted to go ice skating on Christmas Eve, I was pretty sure that he was going to propose on Christmas Eve.

* * *

We went ice skating at the Gallivan Center. Charlie isn't an amazing ice skater, but he knew that I like ice skating since I used to take ice skating lessons. It was raining a little when we first got downtown, but it fortunately let up by the time we got to the Gallivan Center, and I think we skated for about an hour.

* * *

Charlie kept checking the time and looking at his phone, so I was very curious what he was plotting. I did suspect that he was going to propose, but I didn't know exactly how he was going to do it. We enjoyed skating and talking for a while before Charlie declared that he was getting tired, even though it hadn't been that long, and requested that we head home. At this point, I thought that I had misread the situation and that he wasn't actually going to propose, and I was a little disappointed, but we got our shoes on, and I asked him if he wanted to get any pictures of us together around the Gallivan Center since they have pretty colored Christmas lights. Charlie pointed out that, although the lights are fun and colorful, they aren't particularly bright, so they don't make for great pictures, and he suggested that we take pictures at City Creek instead, since he likes their lights better.

* * *

We chatted as we walked into City Creek. I was about to ask him where he wanted to take pictures when he states, "Hey, look, there's rose petals," and he starts guiding me over to this little section of trees and bushes with lights and rose petals on the ground. One of my friends, Morgan, then started playing "At Last I See the Light" from Tangled, and he pulled out a little purple envelope that I had folded out of a piece of paper. The envelope had been from one of my Christmas presents to him, and he decided to repurpose it, which I thought was extremely sweet.

* * *

Charlie tried to give a speech about how much he loves me, but he was crying and having a hard time talking. I was also crying, and I was super duper excited, so I don't think either of us could actually tell you what he said there. He then got down on one knee and asked me to marry him, and I kissed him and obviously said, "Yes!" We got pictures around City Creek after that, and I spent the rest of the night quite literally bouncing around because I was so ecstatic.