If you ask us how we met, you’ll get two different answers.

If you ask Grace, she’ll say that she met Ben in the choir room of Rocky Grove High School, where she was hanging out backstage during Ben’s performance in the title role of Shrek: The Musical. The first time she ever saw him, he was in full costume— we’re talking green paint, pillows under the shirt, and ogre ear prosthetics… and she knew immediately that she wanted to be close to him. The next time she saw him was a few moments later, out of costume, when she declared, “Wow! Now you look like human Shrek!” (It’s important to note that Shrek does turn into a human in the second movie, only after taking a ~handsome~ potion.)

If you ask Ben, his answer would be very different. In fact, it takes place six months later. We were in a production of together at the Barrow-Civic Theatre, and during some downtime at rehearsal, he was talking to somebody about the musical “Sweeney Todd.” Grace walked by and overheard a bit of it, and since that show was her hyper-fixation at that time, she HAD to pipe in. After that, the term “best friend” became the number one phrase that we used to describe each other.

We started officially dating in March of 2019, and had five glorious months together before taking on the Long-Distance Challenge. It was exactly that— a challenge.

Almost every night was spent on FaceTime, and most weekends were spent traveling to be with each other. We were able to do a lot together, though! We’ve read books together, we’ve played Minecraft together, and we’ve watched shows together! And we were able to do all of these together while in our own homes, even though they are hundreds of miles apart.

We are beyond excited to finally never have to be miles apart ever again :)