For most couples, their love story goes: meet, get to know each other, date, get engaged and get married. Our story doesn’t exactly go like that.

Nic and I first met when we were preschool attending Kinder Korner together. At that point he was just another boy that I didn’t want anything to do with. Years later, we met again on a boat when we were about 10 years old. Still, he was just “my parent’s friend’s son” and I was just the girl on the boat. Throughout junior high and high school we would see each other occasionally either at sporting events and parties, but our “get to know each other stage” didn’t really start until college.

Summer of sophomore year, Poultry Days in Versailles, Ohio, Nic and I started a small summer fling. And again, summer of junior year we rekindled our summer fling which eventually faded when he went back to Toledo and I went back to Columbus. At this point, I figured this was just one of those flings I would look back on years down the road. Luckily, I was very wrong.

Fast forward to a brisk October night in 2018, after a local wedding. An inebriated Nic strolled into Cruizers Bar and finally had the (liquid) courage to ask me out. Well, he asked me what I would say if he asked me out, to which I replied, “yes”. Weeks went by and yet no date was on the calendar, which left me incredibly distraught.

Then, on the night before Thanksgiving, at the same local bar, I decided with the help of some beverages that I was going to contact him instead. To my surprise, he was there. That night is where I would say our actual story began: from Cruizers to Nic chasing me around a tree behind St. Remy hall. After that night we got to know each other more , dated, attended more weddings than we can count, traveled, went through COVID together and eventually I convinced Nic he couldn’t live without me.

On June 26, 2020, Nic took me to the same tree I once ran away from him at, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him to which I replied “OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH!”. To this day I am unsure if I ever actually said “yes”.

Until our engagement night I would have told you our story started in either 2018, those summers in college, back on the boat or even preschool, but I was wrong. My father, Matt Monnin, informed me that our story started back in 1994 on New Years Eve just weeks after I was born. My dad had gone up to Shirley Francis, without knowing she was having a boy but who was pregnant with Nic at the time, and said “I just had a girl and you’re going to have a boy and they are going to get married.” I am sure at the time, he did not realize the accuracy of his future telling. Some may say we have been destined from the beginning, but I have a feeling Nic may say he has been doomed.

Now we are just days away from our wedding day and if you are reading this, it means we want you there too! You all are apart of the next part of our story and we can’t wait to celebrate that with you!