Hey this is Ryan. Erin has done so much getting things ready for the wedding day, but this job she’s put up to me. Anybody who has ever read or listened to a story from me knows they can be a bit long winded, but I promise this story is a really good one.

Erin made the first move. I remember mentioning to a friend that she had followed me on Twitter and I had absolutely no idea why. After months of liking each other’s posts, I began to think she might be interested in me a bit. I was very much interested in her, but I had no idea how to talk to her. From her tweets, I knew she had been or was on a dating app, but what were the chances we would be on the same one, around the same place, and she would “swipe right” on me? Pretty slim I thought!

One week I decided if I didn’t match with Erin by the end of the week, I was going to “slip into her DMs” on Twitter and see just how awkwardly I could ask this beautiful and, judging from her tweets, hilarious woman out. Luckily, Saturday morning August 28, 2021, I received a notification that I had matched with Erin on the dating app Bumble. I screamed! Thanks to how Bumble works, she had to message me first. Why I did not save the message I do not know, but I remember it started with “Ryan!!!!” and I could not believe she knew who I was. We sent a few messages back and forth, and I somehow managed to get her number at which point I wasted no time in setting up a date the next weekend when she would be home.

In all honesty, I wanted to go out with her the next day because any extra time I had to think about the date was going to make me more of a nervous wreck. I swore the two friends who knew about it to secrecy. I told them if it did not go well because I was a rambling, goofy mess, I did not want to ever hear about it again. I went and bought two pairs of jeans and three shirts for the date. Even before meeting her in person, I knew she was well out of my league.

September 4, 2021, we had our first date. There was a drizzle of rain that day, and I was terrified my windshield wipers were going to squeak. I wanted everything to be perfect. We went to lunch at Fork & Vine. To get more time with her, I took the long way over to Alto Vineyards for wine after lunch. Through the day, Erin asked me about a million questions. It wasn’t a ton of questions about work or plans for the next week or what food I like. It was what color do I feel best describes me, what kind of things I valued, what did I believe in and why. How is a guy supposed to be prepared for that? I asked her what shapes of tables she liked. I may have been in over my head. Either way, she agreed to meet back up with me for a coffee date the next day.

This girl knew what she was looking for. She was sharp, straight forward, and honest right from the start.

I didn’t know it at the time, but after our first date, Erin’s mom asked her how it went. Erin replied, “Unfortunately well.” Erin didn’t really plan on moving back near her hometown when she moved away. Not that she disliked it, but it just wasn’t really in her plans. I’m fairly certain a farmer wasn’t in her plans either just as much as a graphic designer who lived 80 miles away wasn’t in mine.

Regardless, we found each other, and after that first date we tried to see each other every chance we got. We bounced back and forth between Shiloh and Mulkeytown every weekend. One weekend it would be trips into St. Louis, breakfast at Golden Oak, or going to a concert. The next weekend it would be drinks at The Hop, breakfast at Harbaughs, or running around with whatever our friends had planned for the day.

We started officially dating on September 25, 2021. We were slow dancing on October 9th in what would one day be our kitchen when we said I love you to each other for the first time. We both got covid and spent Christmas quarantined in her apartment. We went to Cincinnati for Erin’s birthday in March. We had our house remodeled and moved in together September 17, 2022. There was so much more. We jammed a lot of stuff into a year, and it was the best year.

On our one year anniversary of dating, we redid our first date. Went to Fork & Vine, ran over to a winery, and then came home to have a glass of wine on our porch. Unlike our first date, there was no rain. It was warm. It was sunny. It was perfect. We were slow dancing to the song that was playing the first time we said I love you. I asked Erin to marry me, and she said yes!

Perfect, perfect day.

Our story moved quick. I don’t think too many people now meet someone and get engaged in almost a year. We fell fast and hard for each other. We were meant for each other. I mean, even outside of the connection we formed through spending time with each other and getting to know one another, there almost seemed to be some sort of force that was pushing us together. Little coincidences. Whether it’s that our grandpas were great friends in high school or that she worked in the marketing department that was running radio ads that nearly drove me insane while I was on the tractor. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, but I’ve yet to find a logical reason as to how I got so lucky.

On September 9, 2023, I get to marry the love of my life. My best friend. The woman I was meant to share my life with. It will undoubtedly be another perfect, perfect day.