Told by Jenna

The Russ' and us have been friends for many years now. About 8 years ago Lindsey (Michael's younger sister) and i started dancing together and our moms became fast friends. It didn't take long for Lindsey to mention that she has an older brother who is close to my age. The teasing has been full force for about 5 years now. We avoided each other fir the most part during that time.

Apart from knowing lots about one another we really didn't know each other.

Fast forward to 2022 and I decide to graduate early and go to Nicolet Bible Institute at Silver Birch Ranch the same year Michael did. That in itself is a story.

Not wanting to run into anything we would regret we decided that we would be friends and just enjoy being able to talk to each other without putting the label of dating on it.

We often found ourselves sitting and talking for hours down by the beach. It was odd to me how easy in was to share my thoughts with him. We talked about so many things (including our thoughts on dating and what relationships should look like). It turned out Julie was right.... we are very much alike.

We talked about dating and agreed to just be friends and revisit the idea once i turned 18 in November. This was about September.

Our talks continued and by October (a month before my birthday) we decided to officially start dating. At that point we already knew we wanted it to go in the direction of marriage but wanted to take it nice and slow not wanting to ruin the friendship if it didn't work out.

By spring we knew we were going to get married it was just a question of when.

On July first Michael came out to the barn (where we both got assigned to work for the summer) on his day off "cause he was bored". While we were out feeding the horses, he bent down on one knee on the hay wagon and asked me to marry him.

And the rest is history in the making.

Photos