We, Gabriel and Julia, met at Northwestern College in our freshman year. When we were first getting to know each other, we often spent time talking late into the night about philosophy or politics while playing ping pong (or more accurately, we were lazily volleying the ball back and forth) with our friends chatting with us from behind. This led to us becoming good friends as we talked about all different aspects of our lives with each other. We often found ourselves gravitating toward each other while we were hanging out in friend groups. We then experienced some shared hardships that we found ourselves bonding over. This led us to become each other's best friend. Hanging out at every opportunity and depending on each other for social comfort, we grew closer every single time. Julia started to join Gabriel for his family's Sunday lunches and Gabriel went to visit her in Rapid City over the summer. Eventually this developed into more robust feelings and emotions that went deeper than just friendship. Realizing this, we decided to take the next steps into being in a relationship, slowly spending a summer growing closer and making sure that this was the right path forward for us. As we continued to push each other to be better individuals, we learned how to continue to do that as a couple moving forward. When we decided to get married, we continued to keep our grounding as best friends central to our relationship. When we got engaged in New York, we wandered the city afterwards, soaking in the realization of our engagement and spending precious time together exploring. We continue to grow in our love for each other every single day and are so thankful for our opportunities to be with each other. We are continually grateful for the way that both of our communities have united to support us in our relationship.

That is just a small bit of who we are and how we began :) One final thing: we can't wait to get married!!