Welcome to our wedding website!

How does one summarize ten years of life together in one or two pages? An initial draft of this story was compiled to such a thorough degree that no wedding website could ever hold the immensity of all that I could say about our relationship. With that, here goes take two:

It started in the summer of 2010, with a simple message over Facebook. I noticed that the girl up the street was kind of cute, and that maybe I wanted to talk with her sometime. One message cascaded into a blissful avalanche of messages, creating conversations that eventually led to coy smiles and an occasional “hello” whenever we would see each other around the neighborhood. These little interactions continued throughout that summer and culminated in one simple conclusion: I needed to ask this girl out and make things official. Such an opportunity presented itself at the SLU High Back-To-School Mixer on August 20 of 2010. She had initially told me that she would not be able to make it, but to my surprise she ended up being there, in all her beauty. We met face-to-face, and in my rehearsed French I declared, fighting to be heard over the booming sounds of “Sandstorm” coming from fifty yards away, “Je pence que tu es jolie, et je t’aime.” This expression of what I considered SLUH sophistication and culture was met with a quizzical look, to which I remedied the issue in English; “I think you are pretty, and I like you.”

From there, we conversed the entire night, launching ourselves into the unknowns of dating. In that one beautiful night we could not possibly have known a few hours would blossom into an eternity together. Subsequent weekends brought walks around the neighborhood we grew up in, conversations in the alley behind our houses where we could be alone, and trips to various local establishments for memorable dates aplenty. Days turned to weeks, which in turn morphed into months. What started with puppy love, as all relationships do, started to develop into a friendship that I could not live without. Arguments came and went, fights were surmounted and replaced with understanding and compassion, and before we knew it we were comfortable using the word “love” to describe what we had together. We experienced our first dances together at SLUH and St. Elizabeth Academy. I went to her plays and concerts, and she came to my hockey games, and we were soon inseparable. At a turbulent time in life, I had found a new friendship which provided stability that I did not think possible.

As months passed we matured and grew together. We made it to our first anniversary, then through my senior year of high school and my impending move to Columbia, Missouri. But even once our short, hundred-yard walk to be together turned into a 125-mile drive, we still stuck together. There was never a single woman at Mizzou who ever came close to challenging Liz in beauty, intelligence, and emotional perfection. We had only been together for two years, but we were now embarking on what would become five years at distance; five years that we knocked out like any other challenge we had faced. Over that time we experienced the wonderful cities of Columbia and Kansas City, making it very clear that it did not matter where we were, all that mattered was that we were together. Together any place could be perfect. When I transferred back to Maryville University, the distance separating us doubled, but still our love grew. Visits were treasured, and the experiences we continued to have together only strengthened our resolve to get through the distance until we could be together permanently. Then, at last, I graduated, followed a few months later by her. At last we would be back in close proximity, even if time would be scarce with my work and her burgeoning academic career in Optometry. We were close together as I decided to uproot my previous life and pursue my new goals in law. My law school prospects fortunately unfolded in a way that kept me in St. Louis, close to my love. Over the past three years we have continued to mature and grow together, complimenting each other and our life and career goals in the best way possible for us. We were now not just surviving distance together, but helping each other through the greatest personal struggles we had ever faced. Through all of this, our love has grown.