Connor and I met through the dating app Bumble. I was in the last year of my radiography degree, and Connor was still settling in at Fort Bragg. We didn’t expect to find the one we would marry on a dating app, but we trusted in God and saw this app as an opportunity to meet new people, with the possibility of finding someone we truly care about. Neither of us could have known when we matched with each other that we would be where we are today. After getting to know each other through text for a few weeks, we decided it was finally time to meet face to face, and he asked me out on our first date.

For our first lunch date, I picked Dirt Bag Ales, a family- and pet-friendly brewery that tends to host different food trucks and markets. Before getting there, I had in my mind that we’d probably be there for an hour and then I’d go home to study for my test coming up in a couple of days. I was very wrong. We ended up staying there, talking and laughing for four hours without even realizing it. We finally came to that realization when my parents started calling and texting me to make sure I wasn’t left in a ditch by a stranger off the internet. At that point, we both decided to get some milkshakes, and then continued to joke around for another hour while we finished our milkshakes, and I dropped him off at the barracks he was staying at. That first date left me with butterflies in my stomach and excited for our next.