Lucas and I met in 2013 and our friendship was formed over a game of Pretty Pretty Princess. The friendship grew the next year when Lucas joined my math and language arts classes. In my 6th grade math class, I sat at a table with Lucas and his brother Erik, and I sat across from Lucas in language arts. One week, I remember we had a spelling assignment, and the instructions were to write the words in alphabetical order, so I wrote “ABC Order” at the top of my page. The next day, when we traded papers with the person across from us to grade our assignment, Lucas found it hilarious that I had written “ABC Order” on my paper, instead of my name, and proceeded to introduce me to others as “my friend ABC Order”.

Four years later, in my sophomore year of high school, Lucas would come into English class every day and sit in his seat right next to mine and tell me who had died in the most recent chapter he had read of “The Jungle”. I remember really seeing him for the first time then and thinking, “huh, he's kind of a cute guy.” But each of us were in separate relationships, and nothing ever happened between us. I graduated high school, and we walked out of each other's lives for a few years.

I started college at Bowling Green State University, and Lucas started at the University of Cincinnati. While at college, we each fell in love with Jesus and devoted our lives to Christ. In the summer of 2021, I went on a ministry trip to Colorado, and Lucas went on a mission trip to Croatia. We started to connect over seeing each other's social media posts from those trips, and the second half of 2021 marked several text conversations with us catching up, talking about faith, or discussing various Spider-Man movies.

Those conversations continued through the start of 2022 while Lucas was in Alabama on co-op. We agreed to get coffee and officially catch up when he returned to Ohio at the end of April. On April 28, 2022, we unofficially had our first date - drinking coffee and talking intensely about the best and worst episodes of the show “How I Met Your Mother”. Neither of us wanted to wait long to see each other again, so we planned our first official date for just two days later.

Lucas returned to Cincinnati shortly after that, and we spent the next few weeks growing closer over FaceTime and texts. Lucas asked me to be his girlfriend that summer, and we built a relationship centered on Christ through numerous phone calls and weekend visits.

Through a year of long phone calls and short visits, I knew Lucas was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. His proposal of marriage to me was a fairytale (you just have to see the pictures!). I'm so excited to grow old with the love of my life.

I first met Maddie when I was in fifth grade and she in sixth. Growing up in the same school, we were always in each other's lives, but never as more than a classmate and friend. From daily chats to inside jokes, we found ways to talk in class. I remember thinking that Maddie was cute, but both of us had our own friends and relationships and that was never pursued. After high school, we both went our separate ways: Maddie to BG and I to UC. Through God's grace, we both individually experienced the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ in college and became involved in college ministry.

Some time in the fall of 2021, we began to reconnect over social media and have some conversations.

We continued to grow closer in the spring of '22 while I was in Birmingham, AL for an internship. Once I came home, we finally decided to catch up by getting coffee together at Grounds for Thought cafe. Later, we found out that both of us wanted that meeting to be a date, but neither of us mentioned anything at the time. Nevertheless, two days later we had our first “official” date when I asked Maddie to go for a walk at a park and get dinner with me. We went on more dates, and on June 12, I asked Maddie to be my girlfriend.

Our relationship was built over long-distance, as I was taking classes in Cincinnati and Maddie was working/taking classes in Bowling Green. It was pretty obvious I was smitten with her though, as I spent every other weekend driving around 5.5 hours round trip just to spend time with her.

After about 10 months of dating, I knew that Maddie was the one I wanted to have by my side for the rest of my life. I immediately began planning and searching for the perfect ring. Finally, after months of keeping it a secret (which was really hard for me to do) Maddie and I met in Dayton, where she thought we were going to have a double date with some friends. Instead, I took her to a park, got down on one knee, and asked her to be my wife. Thankfully, she said yes! Now, we are so excited to be entering into marriage together, and we know that wherever we end up, we will always have God and each other.