This is the story of how we became us. Our very own love story.

Kansas City, 2008. I saw him walking down the hallway of the green and ivory tiled floors of our high school, shaggy-haired with his books leaning on his side.

“Wait, him? Are you serious?”, I whispered to my giddy friend as he passed by us girls, who were nonchalantly trying not to be noticed as we pressed ourselves against our matte blue lockers. You know the feeling, when you are talking about someone and then they suddenly becoming in range of hearing you.  Oops.

“Yeah, I think I like him. And I’m pretty sure he likes me!” she replied.

“…Well that’s random.”  I replied.

This is the first time I noticed my now-husband, my very first memory of him. Not romantic at all, I know. In fact, I was kind of confused why my friend even liked him. I had heard his name before, I knew who he was, who his friends were, but our lives had just never crossed paths until that moment. I was in ninth grade, he was in tenth. Turns out, my friend really did have a crush on him (for a short time), but he really didn’t have a crush on her.

At this point in our “love” story, it’s kinda similar to how there was 400 years of silence in between the Old and New Testament…. Ok not quite 400 years 😉

Two years later…

By this point, I had started attending a youth ministry with a friend, smitten over this particular boy. No, not husband. Another boy – let’s call him “other boy”. But my husband was there; it was the church he called home, the church he grew up in since practically birth. My eyes, heart, and attention had only been focused on “other boy”, but slowly my “forever boy” began to notice me and I began to notice him.

Craving more? Read Part Two here!

(Photos by Ashtyn Nicole Photography, edited by me! Flower Crown by Array Design)