Our story was the most genuine meet you could imagine, neither of us knew that Friends Trip would lead us to today, Planning a wedding and anxiously counting down the days till we say I do!

It all started at Ole Red’s Roof Top Bar, where our friends ran into each other at the bar and started to talk and enjoy some drinks and laughs on a perfect hot Nashville night. As I stood around watching my friends have a great night of laughs and drinks, This gentleman walked up to me with a beautiful smile and the cutest dimples I have ever seen, and he started to talk to me. I wish I could remember the first words he said to me, I think they were probably somewhere along the lines of “Hi I am Michael, and Our friends seem to be getting along, would you like a drink?” I could be wrong on the exact wording, as I was a little distracted by his voice to realize at first that he was even talking to me. This you would say was the start of an interesting night, where I came to learn a lot about this guy named Michael with the Picture Perfect Smile, killer dimples, and that southern accent.

Throughout that night I started to notice how respectful and sweet this man was and how much he was willing to go out of his way to make sure we were safe even to the point of trying to walk us back to our Hotel after the bar closed just to make sure we made it there safe. Little did he realize he would have to walk back to his place on his own. But I knew at that moment there was something about this man that I wanted to know more about. Next thing I know it is months later and I am hopping on a plane to meet this man again in person after hours of Phone calls and text messages. I was walking through the airport so nervous and almost sick to my stomach as I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but the second I saw him standing at the top of the escalator with a big ole smile, I knew I was where I was supposed to be, that week I spent getting to know him and his adorable loving dog Remmy, he really made me fall for him pretty hard, to the point I choose to extend my first stay to Ohio because I was not ready to leave. After that first trip to Ohio, I knew how I felt about him but he still had a test he had to pass waiting in Minnesota. A few weeks passed and it was now his turn to come to Minnesota and meet my dog, Dakota, I was a little nervous as she is very selective about who she likes. But the day Michael met Dakota that was the day I knew I was truly in love with him. My Velcro dog for the first time was stuck to someone who was not a family member or close friend. He walked through that door and she stuck to him like glue, almost like she wanted him in her life just as I wanted him in mine. From that point on we spent so much time driving back and forth, to Flying, to phone calls to videos just to be together. Distance was not always easy but I knew it was worth it.

Our Love story is a 700-mile distance, 11 hours of Driving, An hour and a half Flight, 4 hour Phone calls, Millions of text messages and Snapchat, hours of video calls where one of us (Sarah Jean) might sometimes fall asleep just as if we were right next to each other. It’s the surprise visits, the little gifts, and the actions just to show that we are thinking about each other and missing each other so much. It’s a vacation to Hocking Hills over Thanksgiving weekend where we hiked with our dogs and Michael got down on one knee and asked me to be his forever happily ever after, but it is far from the end of our story and more like a to be continued…..

S&M