Bride's Story:

Shawn and I met when we were just teenagers. I remembered months after our engagement we had made a pact as silly teenagers to get married at 25, if we were both single. He was always one of my best friends, and he never failed to make me smile and laugh. He makes me light up. We were always close before he went to bootcamp in August of 2023. I wrote to him while he was gone, missing one of my best friends the whole time. The night he got out of bootcamp I was his first call, and I think we literally talked all night that night. After he returned home, I think we spent every day together going on adventures. Watching him get on a plane going back that January was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I prayed and knew if he was the one for me, God would keep him in my life. A few months down the road, he asked me to marry him. I will never forget him saying, "The marines didn't prepare me for this", when he got down on one knee. It is just like him to make me laugh in such a serious and meaningful moment. I said, "yes", and never looked back. Shawn is truly my other half and best friend. I am beyond blessed!

Groom's Story:

We started off good friends, and then I went bootcamp. She was one of my only friends to write me during bootcamp. I was most excited for her letter and the pictures tucked in with it. I had always adored her from the moment we met. When I got home from bootcamp, she was the first person I wanted to see. We travelled back and forth from Benton to Conway just to see each other daily. When I went back to California for MCT, I was unsure if she would stay because of distance. I knew she was the one for me because she stuck through the distance. When we first saw each other back in Pensacola, it was as if nothing had changed between us. I knew then that she was the woman I was supposed to spend my life with. I kept the song "Till You Can't" rotating on my playlist, and I never a doubt in my mind she was the one for me. All that matters to me was having her around for the rest of my life.