Once upon a time, in the year of 2017, Jeremy and I met when we both worked at Chick-fil-a. A few months later, we became friends, sharing fun facts with each other when Jeremy was on dishes. The next year, we created a gaming group with some friends, where we began to hang out outside of work. To discuss our game ideas with each other, we started hanging out in the parking lot after work or driving around the county to talk in the car. Finally, in early 2019, Jeremy confessed that he liked me. I agreed to go on a date, where we went to Cave Springs, then the movies to see Shazam. And four years later, on April Fools Day 2023, he proposed to me. The statute of limitations on him claiming it was a joke would’ve run out this past April 1st, and since he hasn’t said anything yet, I guess this wedding is still on the books.

Over the years, we’ve done a lot together, including league bowling, streaming video games, and several trips, including Pigeon Forge, Destin, Louisville, Orlando, and Indiana. We encouraged each other through college and beyond as we began our careers, and he has been there for me as I’ve been facing health issues.

But what I consider to be the most important has been our mutual love for creating and appreciating stories. I believe life and legacy are built by what we leave behind, and I know I am called to create stories. Jeremy is so much more than my fiancé, because he’s my best friend and creative partner. The two of us can and have spent hours on end developing fictional characters and the mechanics of their worlds. You can never run out of things to talk about when you can just make more stuff. We’ve worked on a TTRPG system, a board game, a video game, and a short film, not to mention the years we’ve spent narrating and playing through the worlds we’ve created as table-top gaming settings. And the next project we’re working on is the momentous task of taking the story from our post-apocalyptic superhero gaming campaign and turning it into a series of books. That means sifting through the hundreds of hours of gameplay I’ve recorded over a span of three years and condensing it into a cohesive narrative with satisfying themes and character arcs while also still capturing the essence and events of the original source material.

But first, we’d like to share another story. The story of our love and happiness as we enter into a new phase of our lives. And we’d be so honored if you would join us in attending our wedding to be a part of our story.

When Maddie walked into work on May 4th of 2017, I didn’t know it right away, but it didn’t take long for me to figure out that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

In what I consider a short time in the long scheme of life, we started to hang out after work. Started simple enough as a good time with a couple of back of house friends at Waffle House one night after work. It was adorable, though I didn’t realize until later that she thought we were cool. She went home and came back with a leather jacket.

After a while we started a gaming group and she volunteered to share her books with some of us that may not have had them so that way we could get a group together and I volunteered to be the leader (the one telling the story). We figured out we both enjoyed storytelling. She has always had a great way with words. I could tell based on the numerous stories she had a concept for. I only ever had one that I had worked on, but I have a great imagination, therefore I thought I could handle it. It started as just a few of us. Then as we began to play, our group kept growing. We ended up with around 11 of us, not including myself.

Anyways, why that's important is because it was the start of something special for us as Maddie and I began hanging out after work a lot more. Sometimes sitting in the car watching videos, other times looking at the different books, including new ones she would get. Sometimes, we would go on drives out to the next town over and back listening to music and just talking about our day or life in general. Other times, we would go to places with the back of house crew that we had grown close with, including Nathan, DJ, and Ewan, all of which are in our bridal party and such good friends to the both of us.

On days where Maddie and I weren’t hanging out, being nervous, I had to turn to someone I could talk to about my feelings. That would be DJ and Megan. We spent countless nights after work talking, mostly about how the day went and what was going on in our lives outside of work, including how to go about asking Maddie if she would consider dating me. Of course, it was shortly after that I finally gathered the courage.

So, as our date, she had told me of this place called Cave Springs where they did a cave tour. Unfortunately, it was closed, but we still got to look at the pond and see the ducks. We then went back and had a small snack, followed by dinner and a movie.

Along the way, we have done many activities. Gone to a number of 4th of Julys and New Years parties with our friends, gone to quite a few escape rooms. We did two bowling leagues with my dad and one of her brothers. More recently, we went to Halloween Horror Nights and Disney last year. The list goes on and on, but all along the way, our bond grew stronger. It was cemented a few months before COVID that I was going to marry her. She was not aware that I had already gained her parents' blessing (which I had to do again later in 2023, and this time I actually got to ask her).