We’re so excited to share this special day with you!

So Me and Madison have slightly different versions of that first evening we met. So you should definitely hear it from her sometime 😉 it will more than likely be much more entertaining than my version 😂 So, where do I start? My great aunt, Joy, invited me and my family to a Zoom game night. I was under the impression that it would just be family there, but all of a sudden a couple older sisters joined along with this young, beautiful, sister named Madison. I learned that the sisters were all from her ASL Hall. I was definitely caught off guard though, was I being set up? I didn't know what to think 😂 (Found out later it was truly just a coincidence). We didn't play games for very long on zoom, but what stood out to me was how friendly she was with the group, very much a people person. And when we got to Bible trivia, she was pretty good at that too! We said our goodbyes at the end of the evening and I didn't really think much about her until the next day, when she reached out to me. While we didn't speak much for another month or so, I was paying attention and learned a bit more about her. She's been pioneering how long? She's been where for LDC assignments? It wasn't long before I was smitten 😆

What an interesting evening that was 😂. I got an invite for a zoom game night from Joy and assumed I was in for a chill night with a few sisters or families from our hall. Because I felt so comfortable with everyone I thought would be there, I came dressed in my finest Pjs, with my hair up in a ponytail and no makeup on. You can imagine my horror when I logged on to a room filled with people I'd never seen before! After I pushed past the initial embarrassment, I noticed how nice and talkative everyone was. Everyone except for one....😅 I didn't know if it was because he wasn't comfortable meeting new people, or if he just didn't like my bubliness, but I for sure thought Renton didn't like me at all at first. Eventually, as my competitiveness during the Bible trivia took over, and everyone started to relax, I really started to enjoy myself with all of them! In an effort to continue to make new friends, I decided to reach out to Renton, Bailey and Armani the next day. About a month later I saw that Renton was attending a virtual concert of one of my favorite bands! I immediately texted him asking about it, and our conversations started. I was fully convinced for a long time that Renton was just this awesome person who I was really good friends with. Every time I'd talk about him to my family I would describe him as "basically the guy version of me". I would quickly follow it up with, "but we're just really good friends", to which they just rolled their eyes and gave me looks that said I was living in complete denial, which I was 😂. The more I learned about him, his personality, how he treated the friends, how his overall spiritual goals matched mine, and his overwhelming love for Jehovah, my guard slowly came down. It took a really long time for me to admit it to myself and to him, but I'm so happy Jehovah gave him extreme patience and he decided to stick around. ☺️❤️

Okay, so me and Madison disagree on technically what our first date was 😂 I say it was the first time we spent quality one-on-one time together over Zoom. Which was sometime in January or February of 2021. It was a pretty innocent conversation, I had just asked her to teach me a few things in ASL. In between learning, we chatted a bit and talked about our day. It was a pretty surface level conversation, and would probably have sounded awkward to anyone listening in because we really didn't know a lot about each other at that point, but to me it was a breath of fresh air. Our first formal in person date was October 22nd of 2021. Me and her got all dolled up, and went out with a couple from my hall to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. You can't go wrong with seafood, cannolis, and cappuccino! And to get all dressed up in a suit and tie and hold my umbrella for her is a memory I will keep for a long time. After dinner we went to a candle-lit orchestra. Not your usual one though! They played Beatles songs! Here Comes the Sun, Hey Jude, all the hits 😆. A fantastic evening for sure.

Renton is right that we definitely disagree on when our first date was 😂. I think it was the first day we met in person when he flew out to NC. It was on September 9th 2021 at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens. It was definitely very awkward though, considering we had never seen each other in real life before, and I was afraid to look him in the eye, but after a few hours we started to mellow out. We seperated for a couple hours and then met back up with my brother and 2 of my closest friends for dinner and dessert at an outdoor restaurant, to which Renton shocked and awed me when he stealthily not only paid for my dinner, but everyone there! That really stuck with me as him continuing to prove how serious and genuine he was about pursuing a relationship. I'm so glad he took that leap of faith by coming out for that visit 😊