Once Upon a Time, as most fairy tales start, a girl met a boy on the first day of college. Her name was Elisha and she was from the same small town where she went to college. His name was Thaddaeus and he was living with one of her high school friends, Braxton, who she had met through summer chamber choir. Okay, I'm gonna stop with the third person perspective here because it's annoying me. :P

Braxton introduced us at the football scrimmage during Launch weekend, because it just so happened that we all belonged to brother/sister halls and had to sit by each other there. I immediately had the feeling that I had seen Thad somewhere before, and so after making polite small talk for a couple minutes, I stopped him and said something along the lines of, "Okay, this might be weird, but I seriously feel like I've met you somewhere before and I've been sitting here trying to figure out where it could have been." I was sure that I had just weirded him out and this would be the last time we ever spoke because he was looking at me with a confused look on his face the whole time, but as soon as I finished, his face came alive and he said, "No way me too! I've been sitting here trying to figure it out too!"

And that was it, we spent the next hour or so talking and listing everything we'd ever done, or every place we'd ever been trying to find something that crossed over. But we never did, and sitting here almost 5 years later, we still haven't figured it out.

Cheesy alert: I don't normally like to talk about really mushy relationship things cause they kinda make me gag, but this is something I have to mention because it's one of the reasons that I am convinced that God brought us together. You see, in high school I found this quote that said, ‘And then my soul saw you and it kind of went, "Oh, there you are, I've been looking for you." ' and I always believed that that is what God-ordained love is like. I believe in soulmates in the sense that God puts the people and experiences into our spouses’ lives to prepare them to deal with us-something my dad always told me growing up. When I was younger, I would always ask my parents how they knew that each other were the ones, and they both said, "You'll just know."

I never understood any of that until that moment in the bleachers with Thad. After talking to him for just a few minutes, I kind of knew we would never find any time that our paths had crossed. I wouldn't say that I had feelings for him at that point, but I did enjoy talking to him.

And, since we were both dating other people at that point, that's all it was for the next 2 years, a very casual friendship. We would say hi when our paths crossed and occasionally our friend groups overlapped for lunch or a late-night game session, all the time still throwing out suggestions for where we could have met.

He was always really sweet and seemed to always know when I needed a word of encouragement. One of my favorite memories of this was during sophomore year, about a week after I had broken up with my boyfriend, I had that day where I wanted to look really nice to pull myself out of the post-breakup blues (and also to make the ex a little jealous of course :P). I was making my way across campus to my first class and I got a snapchat message from Thad: "Hey, just wanted to say that you look really nice today!"

I stopped in my tracks in the middle of the parking lot and smiled as I looked up to find him in the top floor of Janzow (the campus center) looking out the window. He waved, and I waved, and I sent back, “Thanks, I needed that!” And that was really it until the following summer.

My roommates Ann and Andrea (see bridesmaid list :P) and I decided we needed a girls’ weekend away, so we planned a long weekend in Kansas City a couple of weeks before Junior year started. That whole summer I had noticed that Thad had gradually started to become really intentional with asking me questions about myself-my thoughts, feelings, beliefs, family, childhood, future plans and dreams. I was really enjoying getting to know him, because I had always thought he was fun to talk to, but I didn’t really think anything more of it because I was actively not looking for a relationship. I had decided that I was done dating in college because I was tired of giving so much of my heart and soul to relationships and then having them crash and leaving me with nothing and feeling like the guys walked away unscathed. I had also noticed my personal walk with Christ had suffered quite a bit during the last relationship, because I had devoted so much time and effort to trying to save a doomed relationship that I wanted to step back from the dating world to repair that. (This is actually important to the story, not just an anti-dating-in-college rant :P)

Anyways, back to the story. So, it was this mindset that allowed me to ignore the warmth I felt in my chest every time Thad’s name popped up on my phone, the gentle smile that took over my lips when he asked me about my family, and the snort-laugh that escaped my nose when he told me about all the pranks his brothers pulled on him growing up.

But that didn’t stop Ann and Andrea noticing all of those things while we were in Kansas City, and I suppose it’s them I have to thank for not missing out on my future husband. So, after the realization that I was falling for this boy hit me I took about a half a day to reevaluate my thoughts toward relationships, and that night I sent him a novel via text about how I didn’t know how he was gonna take this but that I needed to tell him that I realized I had started to have feelings for him that I wasn’t ready for and I didn’t know how he felt and I didn't expect him to have feelings but that I needed to tell him that I wasn’t sure I was ready for a relationship because I was trying to fix some things inside myself and with God. It took him F O R E V E R to respond and all I could think was that I ruined everything and that I had probably read too much into his questions and he probably really didn’t have any feelings beyond friendship for me so I just ruined one of the best friendships I had for nothing, etc. etc. etc.

It turns out he had fallen asleep... Typical, right? :P

But when he responded I could have (and may have) cried because he said he did have feelings for me, but that he also understood the repair season I was in because he had been walking through one as well. That’s when I knew that he was a pretty special guy, he was willing to give me the time I needed to feel whole again before we decided what to do with our feelings for each other, taking the risk that at the end of it I might not have feelings for him at all.

I did :P The next few weeks passed with more questions interspersed with what we were individually learning in our daily devotional times and when we got back to school it only took a few days for him to ask me out (with a clever magic trick entitled, “The Magic in a Kiss”;P) and I happily said yes.

Two weeks in I knew that I loved him, but I didn’t tell him for a while :P Two months in I knew that he was the one, which honestly freaked me out so much I briefly felt like running, but I didn’t and I’m so glad I stayed because in a few short months I get to marry “the one whom my soul loves,”the one my Father made for me, my best friend :)

Y’all, if you aren’t married yet; marry your best friend, 10/10 would recommend ;P

E&T

Wedding Day

3:00 PM

Wedding

Reception