Are you ready for our crazy love story? Buckle up, because it’s wild.

Joshua was discerning the priesthood for 5 years in Italy. When he discerned out back in December 2022, he decided to move back home to Tampa, FL. Meanwhile, Karen was working as a missionary in Texas up until August 2022. After many obstacles kept her from moving to North Carolina (and one emotional breakdown later), she decided NC was not the move and decided to move back in with her parents…who had recently decided to move to the Tampa area! However (grab your popcorn, the plot thickens) during this time Karen was actually discerning religious life (becoming a nun) aka not looking to marry.

So what happened?

Fast forward to the first Sunday of March 2023, a group of people went out to lunch after Mass and that’s the first time we met. Karen’s first thought was that Joshua was a cutie (but I was still thinking about religious life! So I wasn’t going to entertain the possibility of something happening between us). By the time lunch was done, Joshua knew he was interested. The next week Karen had planned a day to serve the homeless in downtown Tampa and invited our friends from church to make some goodie bags for them. He came over to help and by then Karen knew if God ever closed the door for religious life she would be open to a first date with this guy (but of course he didn’t know this). The next week, Joshua cooked dinner and invited friends over. Karen was trying to avoid Joshua all night (since I was still technically not open to dating) while Joshua was trying to be next to her all night and get to know her more.

You can imagine Jesus hardcore laughing at this point and enjoying His story unfolding.

The next day after Mass, Joshua asked Karen on a first date. Karen told him about religious life and said she would get back to him with an answer later that week. And so begins a week of anticipation, waiting, praying and suspense. After praying and asking Jesus “what next?” and talking to Fr. George to help her discern, Karen decided to stop making Joshua silently suffer and she said yes to a first date.

Typically this is where we would say “fast forward to now…” but we don’t have to do much fast forwarding (if you know, you know). Within a month of dating we saw how God was leading us closer to Him through each other. By month two, we started talking about marriage and by month three we got engaged! Yeah, we know, Jesus is wild.

If you’ve never heard of Saints Louis and Zelie Martin look up their story, we’ve been asking for their intercession and actually got engaged on their feast day. He was trying to become a priest, she was trying to become a nun, it didn’t work out for either of them. They met and within 3 months were married!

We hope our marriage and family life will glorify God the way theirs did and we’re excited to have you pray for us and celebrate the beginning of this adventure!

Registry