Jenna: Luke and I met for the first time in 2009, when he was the new kid at Live Oak Classical School in third grade! I was a part time student and he was full time, but I remember overlapping with Luke in recess, music, art, and PE classes. Our grade was small enough that everyone always knew each other, but I thought Luke was something special :) Most of my admiration for Luke in elementary school was because he was sporty, a good student, respectful, and friendly, but I thought he was super cute too. However, we were such distant acquaintances that I didn’t consider it a real friendship, or even a crush. Luke was always so hardworking and well spoken in class, and I remember noticing him being recognized by teachers with virtue awards over the years and thinking about his humble character! I thought he was such a sweetie! Once when playing chain tag in fourth grade PE, my goal was tagging Luke, because once I did I knew he would have to hold hands with me ;) I ended up tagging him, and although he definitely didn’t seem as interested in the whole holding hands for the game thing as I was, I definitely wasn’t upset by it. Then, several years went by before anything of a friendship or romantic relationship developed between us.

Luke: Then, 6 years later on January 22, 2017, it just so happened that I found myself stuck in the backseat of a suburban sitting next to Jenna Davis on the way home from a mock trial scrimmage in Dallas. I was faced with a difficult decision as a self-conscious 16 year-old: either we were going to have a terribly awkward 2 hour car ride, or we were going to have to talk a little bit. As it turned out, we were both in a massive Ben Rector phase in terms of our music taste, so we split a pair of apple earbuds (splitting wireless airpods would have been far less romantic!) and jammed to our favorite songs! What began as an awkward seating situation ended up showing us that we did, after all, have a bit in common. Our friendship only continued to grow from our musical bonding moment, when Jenna invited me to her youth group, where I was welcomed with open arms. It was at Fellowship that I saw the side of Jenna that was her faith and love for serving the church.

Conveniently, prom was just around the corner, so I thought I would ask the prettiest girl in our class who was becoming a close friend of mine! When I sat down with Jenna’s dad to ask permission to take her to prom, it was a shock to me that he would be curious about my intentions of dating her; but after prom, my intention was very much to pursue Jenna. After a few more months of budding friendship, our parents gave me the opportunity to ask her out.

Jenna: As things had evolved since January, I had become increasingly interested in Luke! However, a part of me was very anxious about the idea of dating, because I had never dated before and did not want to ruin the deepening friendship we had by rushing into something immaturely. But as I prayed about our relationship, talked with Luke, and got lots of advice from my parents, I was more certain about dating Luke. On my sixteenth birthday in July 2017, my mom called me downstairs to “answer a birthday call from my grandparents.” When I got downstairs though, there was Luke Garst in my kitchen! I was embarrassed because I had been sick and caught off guard, but he gave me flowers and asked me to go on a date with him. A couple days later Luke’s mom drove us to the zoo and to Ninfa’s for lunch. Our first date had finally happened and it was so sweet :) A few weeks later I said yes to being Luke’s girlfriend.

Luke: When we began dating in August 2017 with great intentions of deepening our friendship, neither of us could have seen the experiences we would share and the relationship that we would have 5 years later. As anyone who’s been a teenager knows, these are the biggest years of change and – Lord willing – of growth! Many relationships and friendships come and go during these years because of the abundance of change. What a blessing it is to have grown and changed together for so many of our teenage years. We graduated high school together, and started at Baylor, and with that transition came further growth. From learning how to approach the naturally arising conflicts of personality differences (some of ours being opposite extremes of each other), to transitioning from both of our home churches and learning what we value in a local church body, to experiencing college culture shock even in our hometown, to navigating the difficulty of change in friendships; God provided a confidant and wise counselor for me in Jenna. What was initially a relational challenge as our personalities grew and matured has resulted in the betterment of both of our outlooks. Over those years, we have been blessed with 6 birthday celebrations each, 5 friendiversaries, 5 dating anniversaries, 2 ski trips with the Davises, 2 Virginia trips with the Garsts, 1 class trip to Italy, and thousands of hours of quality time and laughs.

Jenna and Luke: We want to say thank you to our wonderful parents– we would not be where we are without your example and support which have been so instrumental in our relationship! To our friends, mentors, and families, you have been of such encouragement to us and we are so grateful. We are so excited for our new beginning as God unites us as one in marriage!