Kaylee and I (Luke) are both firm believers and made the choice to trust God and His timing in our lives and relationships. Before we met, we were both in a place of accepting that being single may just be where the Lord wants us to be as we pursue our respective ministry work. But little did we know that He had other plans. On October 24th, 2020, our mutual friend Dana was celebrating her birthday and invited a group of friends to a pumpkin patch. Neither one of us remembers seeing or meeting the other one there, yet there is a photo of us (on opposite sides of the group); it wasn't His timing! When we look at the picture and see us both there we couldn't help but smile and laugh because we were two people in completely different worlds standing no more than 20 feet apart. We had no clue that in just over a year, the Lord was going to bring us together to begin a new life that would be our most exciting adventure yet!

Our friend Dana and I (Kaylee) were sitting in my office one day at work, and she mentioned this amazing guy she wanted to me to meet. "He is literally perfect and...HE'S A DOCTOR," she gushed. She told me about his faith in the Lord, his love for youth ministry, his intentionality with his friends, his love for his family and his sweet puppy, and the list went on. This guy seemed to me, first of all, completely fake. But I thought I'd take a chance and meet him anyway. Dana organized a casual pizza dinner with a couple of friends and told me to "dress nice." I put on my best date outfit and waited eagerly (anxiety sweats and all) for Luke to arrive. We sat down at the table and I immediately knew I had met the most genuine guy. He was so attentive, so caring, so passionate, and so funny. Needless to say, sparks were flying and I was swooning. As the night began to wrap up, the table began to share our top five things we look for in a potential partner. In the parking lot before everyone went their separate ways, Luke shared his list. At that moment I was glad we were in the dark so he couldn't see how red my face was and how hard I was cheesing. His list was my list to a tee. Could this be my guy?

After texting every minute of every day leading up to this moment, I (Luke) decided to ask Kaylee out on a date. I had just gotten back from a skiing trip with my dad and brother and I couldn't wait to see her again. It had been over a week since we last saw each other and my feelings were growing stronger for her with each passing day. I grabbed my phone and nervously began to text her to ask her if she wanted to get some ice cream. I waited for what felt like an eternity (in reality is was like 2 hours...digital communication is not her strong suit) for her to respond. We met at Cold Stone around 8 pm after she finished with her ministry commitment, and I think we were both more nervous than we had ever been before. We both ordered a cup (I got the Cookie Don't You Want Some creation and she got her Banana Ice Cream with Graham Cracker Crumbs) and ate only a few bites of it and then just left it there to melt into soup as we talked the night away. We were both really nervous and also freezing (I think it might have been colder than the ice cream we intended to eat haha) but we had a great time getting to know each other. Before we knew it, it was 11:30pm and we were practically frozen to our chairs. We could have sat there and talked for several more hours but since neither one of us could feel our feet, we felt it was probably time to call it a night. After the date was over, I couldn't help but thank the Lord for bringing someone this special into my life!

I (Kaylee) couldn't wait to get back from Middle School Winter Camp to see Luke again. In fact, the night I arrived home, I was completely exhausted and strung out on Red Bulls but I invited him over for dinner anyway. At the time, I was living at my Aunt Patty and Uncle Rich's home, and dinner at their house consisted of them two, their son and daughter-in-law, and all of their 4 crazy kiddos (under 6 years old). Luke arrived at the house and at the top of the driveway, I prepped him..."I didn't let you know this ahead of time, but my whole family is inside waiting to meet you." He took it like a champ. The whole evening we laughed, played games, jumped on the trampoline with the kids, and laughed some more. When everyone went to bed, Luke and I stayed up and sat on the couch talking. Despite my many subtle hints, I knew this sweet man was not going to kiss me. All my plans for him to make the first move went out the window, and I just planted one on him! "I wasn't expecting that!" he giggled.

Kaylee and I (Luke) were celebrating our one month-aversary and I knew that I was in love with her. Honestly, I knew I loved her after she planted that kiss on me and I had been waiting patiently for the right time to tell her but I was scared because I didn't want to scare her off. Little did I know that she was facing the same dilemma in her own heart. We ate dinner and played cards and then, while we were sitting on the couch talking, she told me that she wanted to tell me something. She said she talked to her friends and was told not to say anything. But she told me she wanted to take the chance anyway. Then, she said the 3 words that I had been wanting to say to her for a long time. I froze in place and then quickly responded by saying that I loved her too. We rejoiced in knowing that we both felt the same way about each other, and we could now take a step forward in our relationship and pursue each other on a deeper level.

All week, Luke had been prepping me (Kaylee) for this amazing surprise date that he had planned. But on Wednesday before he proposed, I came down with a pretty bad cold! I kept telling him that it was totally fine with me if he wanted to cancel the date or reschedule it for a different day, but he was insistent. This tipped me off that something fishy was going on, but I just brushed it off. The morning of the engagement, I went to get my nails done with my cousin, McKayla, and a few of her friends and I tried not to think about how I might be getting engaged that night. But just in case, I got my hair done, put on a new dress, and downed some cold medicine. After Luke took me to our favorite sushi spot in Carmel, he suggested that we take a short walk on the beach. It was freezing, but I agreed. The whole time we were walking, Luke was pulling my arm down the beach. I kept telling him that it was okay to slow down! Little did I know, he wanted to get me to the place he was going to propose before sundown. One thing that we have said throughout the 8 months that we had been together is "someday in the future no pressure" as a way to take the pressure off when we wanted to talk about our future (marriage, kids, buying a house, traveling, etc.) Luke asked me to close my eyes. "What if I told you that someday in the future no pressure was today?" I screamed YES as our out-of-state families ran down the beach to surprise me. All of that to say, I couldn't be more happy that our someday in the future no pressure is today.