Six years ago, we met at our best friends’ wedding. Just like a rom-com opening scene, Jason was a groomsman, Libby was a bridesmaid. While everyone else was on the dance floor, we bonded over the shared relief of not having to participate and instead chatted about our passions - Jason shared about his love of airplanes and Libby talked about her business training Diabetic Alert Dogs.

At the end of the evening we went in opposite directions, quite literally. Jason went to graduate school, realized he liked airplanes more than sutures, and then moved to Arizona for flight training. Meanwhile Libby moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland for her graduate school. No phone numbers were exchanged and no contact was continued, so it became less of a rom-com and more similar to a lengthy documentary with a multi-year intermission.

For the next few years the only updates we heard about each other came indirectly through our now-married mutual friends, Grace and Caleb who, to their credit, never fully gave up on the idea of us. Eventually, Jason and Libby both happened to be in Nashville visiting those same friends (due to some not-so-subtle matchmaking nudges behind the scenes). We finally exchanged numbers and began a three-year slow-burn friendship made up of long phone calls, and even longer gaps between them.

By late 2024, the calls became far more frequent but just as lengthy. When Jason returned to Ohio for Christmas, he stopped in Lexington to “say hello", and to have our first date.

And things took off from there, moving quite quickly, which is rather off-brand for the two of us! Jason finished flight training and, after being hired by Southwest Airlines, he moved from Arizona to just an hour from Libby (which was suspicious, considering pilots can live anywhere and Union, KY is not usually at the top of their list...). Around the same time, Libby became self-employed, which meant her new boss was extremely flexible about time off. Before long, our days filled up with distillery visits, family dinners, quiet evenings on the patio, and the occasional puppy delivery that typically involved a flight on Southwest Airlines.

We’re incredibly grateful to the friends who brought us together six years ago, and to God for writing a story with better timing than we ever would have chosen. We can’t wait to celebrate it with you in March!