Miranda and Steven met on June 7th, 2014 in North Webster, Indiana. Both had volunteered to be counselors at Camp REYOAD, a week long summer camp for adults with special needs. Steven was encouraged to be a counselor by his Uncle Dave Fletcher (who will be the officiant of the wedding ceremony!) the week prior to camp when he attended Steven’s high school graduation in Maryland. Miranda and Steven were placed together as counselors in the “Adult Group” and spent that first week together trying to pretend like they weren’t interested in the other. Both Miranda and Steven instantly had a crush on each other, but nervousness and a 650 mile distance between them kept them from admitting it to one another. Through the next few years Miranda and Steven returned to Camp REYOAD and continued their war of attrition in regards to who would finally tell the other they liked them. In 2019, Steven attended Camp REYOAD a few weeks prior to leaving for his first deployment. Miranda and Steven had talked for a few weeks after Camp in years prior, but it would eventually fizzle out as life and school happened for the both of them. However, 2019 was different. Miranda and Steven continued to talk for 14 months straight until Steven returned home in August of 2020. Also it should be noted that Miranda told Steven she liked him first; but only under the premise that Steven was under threat of a rocket attack at the time. Steven admitted to her that he liked her back, and on August 29th, 2020 she flew down to visit him in North Carolina and he asked her to be his girlfriend. Miranda had just finished College at Indiana University, and Steven had just returned to NC State (largely in part to encouragement from her!). They spent the next two years navigating a long distance relationship, Steven’s move to the Savannah, GA area, and an unexpected deployment to Europe in 2022. On December 18th, 2022, Steven proposed to Miranda on the back deck of her parents’ house in Colfax, IN. She answered with an emphatic “YES!” and thus began the process of planning a wedding and a life together. Miranda and Steven’s story proves that true love can surmount the challenges of long distance and that it's ok when it takes you 6 years to build up the courage to tell someone you like them!