On November 22nd, 2014, Darius and I went to a youth outing at Monkey Island. We had seen each other earlier that day at church, but we didn’t speak.

I had my play niece with me and he had his sister so we both inevitably ended up at the inflatable slide and spoke. After a while, we ended up back at the tables with the rest of the youth group to feed the kids and then take a group picture.

Prior to this outing, our Pastor mentioned that there was someone he wanted me to meet named Darius to work with in the youth dept.


When the time came, the youth leader told the kids to “take a picture with Darius”, my antennas went up because of what our Pastor had said. I asked her to confirm that was who our Pastor was talking about and she immediately put her match making skills to work. She put a good word in my ear about him and vice versa. She was rooting for us from moment one.

Later that afternoon, we followed each other on social media and began talking almost immediately.


We went on our first date just two weeks later on December 6th, 2014. And we made it official at our Youth’s Winter Wonderland Ball on December 12th.

We went on to see each other regularly and Mondays were our chill day at my house because that was our off day. He would travel from 35 miles away via Metra to get to my house. And on his off weekends, I would do the same to his house.

October 2015, after a dumb argument, he told me “I got you a ring. I only want to be with you.”

We went on to marry on NYE that same year in a small and intimate ceremony. And now here we are, getting ready to celebrate 10 years of marriage!


We cannot wait to celebrate our love with YOU!