Emma and John met in the spring of 2021 at Samford and easily became friends. For a year or so they enjoyed going to each others’ sorority and fraternity functions, hanging out with groups of friends, and studying together in the library. After spending more time around each other, John began to develop quite the crush on his cute blonde friend, Emma. Deciding to shoot his shot, John offered to drive Emma to their Young Life leader Christmas party. As was normal at this point, the two made easy conversation and enjoyed some laughs as they got turned around and stuck behind a train on the car ride there. On the ride home right before he dropped her off, John expressed his interest in Emma and asked if she would like to spend some time with just the two of them on a date to get to know each other better. Emma happily said yes! However, two days later, Emma reached out to John and informed him that she didn’t think it would be the best timing for her to go on a date but that she would be open to it if an opportunity came up in the future. A defeated John went home for Christmas break with not much hope of getting to know Emma as more than friends.

Little to his knowledge, Emma thought about John quite a lot over Christmas and was hopeful that they would get more opportunities to spend time together. In the spring, John and Emma got paired as tour guide partners at school (much to their secret delight!) After their first tour together in January of 2022, Emma invited John to go on an afternoon run with her. Although he thought she wasn’t interested in him but was just trying to be nice, John agreed. This run sparked a series of small adventures in the coming weeks: rendezvous study dates, late-night Swedish Fish runs, jogs in Vestavia Hills, and birthday gift shopping for Emma’s friends. The two were smitten with each other, and John decided to try again. John once again asked Emma on a date and this time it did not include a last-minute cancellation, despite a tornado!

John and Emma went on four dates in the next couple of weeks. He was drawn in by her beautiful eyes, compassionate heart, and love for Jesus. She was fascinated by his spontaneous personality, silly jokes, and confidence in his faith. On their fourth official date, John told Emma how wonderful he thought she was and asked if she would like to continue to go on dates, but as his girlfriend. A thrilled Emma agreed!

John and Emma’s dating relationship was just as fun and exciting as they hoped it would be. Their adventures continued in spontaneous beach trips, Mets baseball games, and lots of time with each other’s families, a wonderful blessing. On September 15th in Winter Park, FL, John asked Emma to marry him and commit to spending their life pursuing Christ’s Kingdom together and laying down their own lives for each other daily. Today, we are so excited to welcome you to celebrate our union this coming summer and want to express our gratitude for the impact you have made on our lives.

One final request I (John) have is that no one informs Emma that I’m marrying up and she is marrying down. She’ll figure it out soon enough.

See you on June 1st!!