April 9th, 2022. I still remember the day as if it were yesterday. It was my first semester at WIU and the sorority I recently joined was having a social with one of the fraternities. I didn't originally plan on going because my new member class was having our initiation sleepover that night, but with some convincing from one of the older girls in my chapter, my new member class and I decided to go because it was expected to be "The best social of the semester and something we'd regret missing." The night was just starting and both organizations arrived at a bar called Two Dogs near campus for the DZ x Delt social. I left my friend group to go grab a drink from the bar and as I'm waiting on my drink someone to the left of me says, "Hey, what's your name?" I turn and the man next to me introduces himself as Charlie. I introduce myself with his follow-up question being, "Where are you from?" I explain that I live in the suburbs of Chicago, but I used to live in Wisconsin and Minnesota for a couple of years. As soon as I said the word Minnesota there was a twinkle in his eye; it sounds silly, but I swear it. This led to a good 10-minute conversation about Minnesota because I found out Charlie was born and grew up there before moving to Illinois. Our conversation continued with our connection being so natural till it was interrupted when I heard my friends yelling my name before they dragged me to the dance floor leaving our conversation with unfinished. As the night continued I made my way down to The Forum (the bar below Two Dogs) after our social and I bumped into Charlie again, he would say miraculously, but I remember him looking for me considering both our friend groups were around this time and he came right up to me trying to flirt (I say trying because Charlie was clearly shy, but as well had some liquid courage going to help him haha). After that, we had great night getting to know each other because he followed me around like a puppy all night (he probably will leave that part out of his perspective though haha), but I didn't mind it because I thought he was cute from the moment I met him.

After that night we would bump into each other here and there because of our friends or at parties and we were acquainted enough to say hello and have a short conversation, but not much more (what Charlie didn't know at the time though was that I'd purposely go with my friends that were meeting up with group hoping he'd be there so we could talk more.) We eventually got each other's socials, but with the end of the semester approaching I didn't see or talk to him much before moving back home for the summer.

Fast forward to the middle-end of summer, Charlie randomly texted me. We started talking every day and even made plans to hang out when we returned for the Fall semester. When we returned to school we became inseparable and hung out daily with our mutual friends even starting to question if we were dating and as time passed it became clear that Charlie liked me. Charlie was very persistent despite me holding back and I'm glad he was because he eventually asked me to be his girlfriend October 23, 2022 and the rest is history!

The night started as any normal college night; I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary. A night of hanging out with my fraternity friends before going to the bars in good ol’ Macomb, Illinois. As we were going about our normal routine, I saw this beautiful girl and her friends walk through the door. At the time, I didn’t know how to go and approach her or what to say.

Once we got to the bar and I had a little bit of liquid courage, I finally went up to introduce myself. As this beautiful girl introduced herself (the music was LOUD) I mistakenly heard her say her name was Trinidad. Me thinking I was funny began calling her Trinidad and Tobago the rest of the night. Thankfully she didn’t hate me too much after this because we continued to talk. As we were making this small talk I mentioned I grew up in Minnesota…. And as if I already wasn’t interested enough she said she had lived there for a few years as well which then of course was followed by me asking 100 questions about her time in Minnesota. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite catch all of her attention that night.

Fast forward a couple of months, and I get this notification on my phone that Trinity Perez has messaged me on Instagram. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a love letter, but just a joke about one of my fraternity brothers. Nevertheless, I took this as “she is definitely interested,” and of course I had to brag to my friends that I got this DM from this beautiful girl. As the school year ended and summer started, I worked my magic to get her number. We started talking more and more so of course as the new school year was coming around, I knew I wanted to get to know her better.

Finally, we get to the school year… It is my very first night living in the Delt house. As we are texting, I very smoothly (not very smooth at all) ask if she wants to come over and help me set up my room. Somehow this works… She shows up to the house. This was just the beginning!

Now fast forward 3 years and we are getting married. Crazy how my very smooth moves actually worked, but I will thank God every day that it did!