This new, cute boy moved to Mt. Juliet with his family, and by chance, we rode the same school bus home our 8th grade year of junior high school. We would talk and laugh riding home each day and became fast friends but that is where things would end as he was dating someone else.

Sadly, Matt and his family moved away from Mt. Juliet the following year, and we lost touch.

Fast forward to the creation of Facebook - the place where you went to connect with and find family and friends, those you talk to everyday and those you had lost contact with.

We became friends on Facebook at least a couple to 3 years before that random day in October of 2019 when Matt sent Stephanie a private message on Messenger asking if she remembered him.

Of course, she remembered him and was shocked when he told her he had a crush on her back then. Little did he know that Stephanie also had a crush on him back then.

Over the next month and a half, we talked and texted covering so many topics and sharing so many laughs and finally decided to meet for dinner on November 20, 2019. We shared a hibachi dinner, had a drink, and set and talked as if there had not been a day or decades go by since we had last seen each other.

Over the next four years, our love would continue to grow in ways neither of us every expected. Some ups, some downs, births and deaths, changes of careers, and through all of it, each of us realized that the other one is what our life had been missing.

On December 22, 2023, Matt proposed. It was beyond perfect. On that evening, in our living room, in front of the Christmas tree, Matt got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. We both had tears of joy as I said yes.

We are beyond excited to continue our love story and cannot wait to say I Do!