It all started in 2018 at Mission Indy. Samantha and Elijah both were hesitant to apply for the internship, but both got hired! The six of us spent the entire summer together and became the closest of friends. The dreaded goodbye arrived, and we each went our separate ways.

Of course, we all kept in touch! Samantha had a crush forming, and Elijah went on to schedule one-on-one days for the two of them to catch up, as friends of course!

New stages of life passed us by, and we spoke less and less (although, undeniably, Samantha still got nervous during every phone call).

"What if we grab a late breakfast the morning I leave Indy?" Elijah texted, after we planned our reunion with our former interns.

You mean...alone?? Sitting in front of the mirror that morning, changing outfits continuously, Samantha prayed a quick prayer: "Lord, I can't make him uncomfortable. Either give him feelings or take mine away." Can you guess what happened?

Around the same moment, Elijah was working up a sweat as he prepared to meet for breakfast. But why so nervous? We're just friends...right?!

Breakfast was wonderful, and the company even better. We didn't want to leave, so we made our way to the park, where we walked for hours, never running out of conversation. Elijah even snapped what he called "cute pictures".

Could she be reading into that long hug at the end of our walk...or were feelings resurfacing?

Guess who KEPT driving to Indiana every other weekend! Everyone in Samantha's life was pleading with her to see the truth- he is pursuing you!

But she raised that wall high and assumed the worst, not letting another person in to cause heartbreak. Did she REALLY have a crush on him- wasn't he just a friend? But...

"I can teach you how to dance!" she boldly texted days later. When Elijah drove up, the two swing danced the night away, and oddly worked as a perfect couple on the dance floor.

"Today is the day I'll tell him...he's more than a friend."

"Today is the day I'll tell her...she's more than a friend."

If only they had known. The two "friends" spent all day worrying separately about the upcoming rejection they might face as they confessed feelings.

Except, that evening as they arrived back from the trip, Elijah broke the ice- apologetically confessing and expecting rejection.

And she reciprocated. As Elijah writes in his song Maybe, Maybe, this was the day things "blossomed into forever".

Samantha and Elijah met in the middle at Terre Haute for some lunch and roller skating, which turned into two hours of sitting and talking instead of actually skating! If ever there was doubt about how their "friend-to-lover" dynamic would pan out, it was all erased now.

"I've never heard you talk about someone like this!" Kristyn, one of Samantha's matrons of honor, said minutes after the first date update was given.

Two weeks later, as Samantha and Elijah learned their dynamic together and called every night during the long-distance times apart, they returned to the park where that very first walk took place- where all of Elijah's feelings had surfaced. Sitting at that very bench they once sat at as friends, they decided to make it official. Things are getting real!

Remember how the two had connected in July 2023 after spending some time with intern friends? One year later, after visiting those same friends, Elijah popped the question!

But not without some trickery first! He took Samantha ring shopping for the SECOND time that week, making her dress up to psych her out! Then, when the time came for the actual proposal, she blushed and said "Why are we walking toward that fancy table? It looks like someone is celebrating a bachelorette party over there! I don't want to interrupt."

Six years after first meeting, God was making his sovereignty known in Samantha and Elijah's lives. Let the countdown to the wedding begin!