Over the last eight months, we have been busy planning our wedding for August 8, 2020. As I’m sure you can imagine, it has been incredibly hard and frustrating for us to plan a wedding during COVID. Vendors have been hard to reach, and currently, we aren’t even able to get a marriage license in the State of New York.   In April, we were given the opportunity to have a virtual meeting with the Lancaster County Courts to apply for our Pennsylvania marriage license. We received our license in the mail last Wednesday, called our families, and decided we would get married in my parents’ backyard on Saturday, May 2nd.   While it’s not what we expected, Justine and I are thrilled that we had the opportunity to get married and have a beautiful (and very relaxed) ceremony amid everything that is going on. Currently, we are still planning on having a religious ceremony at Justine’s church, and our reception on August 8th. However, if conditions don’t improve, we feel we have more freedom to push the ceremony and reception to a later date.   Tl;dr: We got married!

Mike and Justine arrive to Wells College ready to start a new chapter in their individual lives. Freshmen need to arrive earlier than upperclassmen in order to partake in a near week long orientation. During this time of hugging trees (in Mike's case, quite literally), meeting new people from all walks of life, and trying not to let people know how much you love the song "Karma Chameleon", Mike and Justine had not yet met. It wasn't until an orientation group dance off, that Mike first laid eyes on Justine as she danced with her group. Mike was instantly enamored, but did not approach Justine. Some days later (still within the first week), the semester started and Mike and Justine still hadn't met. It wasn't until Mike was going back to his dorm room in Dodge Hall after either class or volleyball practice (he doesn't remember), that he again saw without a doubt the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, sitting at a small table made for two in the common area on her laptop. Presumably studying (I was studying for my language placement exam -Justine). They exchanged smiles as Mike walked past. When Mike got to his dorm room, he put his backpack down, and gave himself a five minute pep talk to garner the courage to go back out to say hello. He looked around the room, grabbed his laptop, and left. Mike asks Justine if he may join her. Justine happily obliges and makes room at the table. After Mike sets up his laptop, they take time and get acquainted. Justine asks Mike what he's working on. Mike, clicking on random items on his desktop, says "Economics" just to impress the woman who would become his future wife. Mike and Justine survived Wells together. Ate almost every meal together, watched movies, got Chinese, and went thrifting in Auburn. Made nachos and watched football (which they recently found pictures of). Played guitar, piano, and sang. Confided in each other. And became friends in what seemed like an instant. They built a friendship that would stand the test of time and distance. A friendship that would eventually evolve into the beautiful love they have today. Recommended song for this story: "Friends Don't" by Maddie & Tae

I totally knew that I was going to marry this guy, 220% definitely was sure. We started talking regularly again in May of 2018 around graduation. By the end of May, Michael was asking me to be his date to his brother’s wedding. This was a terrifying possibility (more on this in the Meeting the Heiners section). Most of all though, because I knew that if I went to that wedding & spent a few days basically glued to Michael’s side that I would never be able to keep denying to myself that I still loved him (which I had successfully done for 4 years). I also knew that he still thought I was the best person on this planet. So, I was positive that if I went down there we’d end up dating. By the beginning of October we acknowledged that we both wanted this to be a forever thing, then January came & I was just trying to guess when a proposal was coming that year. So, I honestly wasn’t very surprised. I was only ever surprised each time we were together over the summer & he didn’t propose. In April he had told me that he was ready to buy a ring, he had been looking at them with my sister Jacey. So I started getting my nails done like clockwork. Finally it came down to, “He hasn’t done it yet. If it is not today I will honestly probably be mad.” Haha I planned a day for us to go visit Wells College (where we met). There was a brewery we wanted to try (Michael said it was great), we wanted to eat their brick oven pizza (turns out their kitchen was torn apart), so we got burgers, tenders, mozz sticks, & sweet potato fries from the Fargo (a place we still had to try) which we then brought to the Great Gully (a place I always promised I would take him) & right there, while I was dancing around the waterfalls eating a burger in a place I grew up playing that was located five minutes from where I met this incredible man,. Michael got down on one knee & asked me to be his wife. AND I JUST LAUGHED FOR LIKE TWO MINUTES AT THE INSANITY OF IT ALL while he was stuck on his knee until I finally said yes. Then I took tons of pictures of us/my new bling with literally everything.

Meeting the Heiners was something I spent more time stressing over than necessary. I was so worried that everyone was going to hate me, or be more stuck up than I could deal with, or that they would find me boring, or that I wouldn’t like anything that they liked,. By the end of that 1st weekend though, I realized that this was such an incredible & loving family. I remember shaking inside when I walked up to the hotel in Reading, PA. Meeting your possible BFs definitely future husband's family at his brother’s wedding is not how I would suggest going about it. But it went great! Minus the part where I could not figure out how to consume a Jell-O shot and that I definitely was the cause of Michael and I losing at cornhole. I found out that Cindy is one of the kindest, most accommodating people on the face of the Earth & Bob is one of the most protective (& sarcastic). All in all, this is an incredible family and I am so thankful to add to my big, crazy, loud family! I love you all (aunts, uncles, grandparents & family friends included). Thank-you so much for striving to include me as part of the Heiner family!