I can’t believe it’s been a year since I said “I do” and married my best friend…I know, it sounds so cliché and everybody says that in all their Facebook anniversary posts, but I guess now I know why they say it—it’s true.

August 10, 2013, was one of the best and happiest days of my life and it was such a great climax to—in my opinion—a great story of how Philip and I met (but I may be slightly partial).

If you’ve been reading my blog for a any length of time, you know I keep hinting at sharing our story with you at some point, and I thought today would be the perfect time to fill you all in on our special story…

It all started with, “I have a son I think you’d like…”

This was waaay back in July of 2012 (ok, not so long ago, really). I had recently moved to Peoria, Illinois, for my dietetic internship. I knew literally no one except the four other girls I met the first day of my internship in June. The only sense of “home” I had was the church I found in Peoria. I had gone to a Vineyard church in Ames, Iowa, that I loved for many reasons. I was relieved, then, to find out that Peoria had an excellent Vineyard church, too. I jumped on that train the first weekend I was in Peoria—having a little bit of familiarity amongst all the newness was so comforting.

Not to mention, the people were so friendly! The pastor and his wife, Ben and Tina, always made it a point to say hi to me each Sunday and genuinely seemed to be interested in my less-than-exciting life. To officially welcome me to their church community and to get to know me and my story better (at least I think that’s why :)), they invited me over for supper along with Kate, another intern. For not knowing them all that well, conversation was great and somehow the topic of relationships came up…which led to Tina tentatively saying, “I have a son I think you’d like.” I sort of laughed it off while still saying yes (I couldn’t seem too eager about this possibility, right?!) and didn’t think all that much of it. Sure, all moms say that kind of thing and never follow through.

Well, little did I know that Tina had been discussing the topic of relationships (and in particular me) with her son, Philip, that summer. Knowing what I know now, Philip wasn’t all that excited about the idea, but was open to it, nonetheless. What appeared to be an off-hand comment at the dinner table was actually a very well intentioned and thought out remark that Tina had been thinking and praying about ever since she met me at the beginning of June. Who knew?!

After that Thursday night dinner in late July, I received an email from Tina the following week with Philip’s email address (with his permission, of course). I’ll admit, I was a little very excited about the potential of something forming and didn’t waste any time drafting up an email to send to Philip—so much for not appearing too eager… I realized drafting an email is not an easy thing to do for somebody you’ve never met before and can’t even remember where he lives.

I guess I didn’t bore him too much with my first email or scare him away with my other ones, because we continued emailing back and forth throughout the month of August, each email progressively getting longer and longer. We learned we both have a love for Rummikub (a tile-Rummy game that I thought nobody played except for my family and me) and I found out he’s just as anal (even more so) about grammar, bullet points, and organization in emails—I knew there was potential from the very beginning. :)

I’d like to say the rest is history, but it’s still part of our story…so I’m going to share whether you want me to or not. :)

We finally met over Labor Day weekend, just a month after we started emailing. With the help of his mom, we had a wonderful picnic by the Illinois River and literally talked into the sunset. It was such a good weekend, in fact, that he drove the 3 1/2 hour drive again the next weekend. I knew there was still hope even though dating hadn’t left our tongues yet.

We called it “seeing each other exclusively,” (which his dad and I spent an evening trying to figure out what that really meant anyway) until late October when Philip—after much prayer and thinking—asked me to be his girlfriend and future wife. When he said future wife, I don’t think I fully understood at the time just how soon future wife was on his timeline. For as slow as we were taking things in the beginning was as fast as we took them after that.

We started looking at rings shortly after that (okay, it was basically that weekend), were engaged on January 5th of 2013 and 7 months later, I moved to Madison after finishing my year long internship and we tied the knot on August 10, 2013 with his dad officiating for us. Most special day. ever.

It’s been almost two years of knowing each other, 1 1/2 years of loving each other, and one year of wading through this journey of marriage. There’s been lots of highs and a few lows, but always plenty of laughter, love, and learning along the way. I can’t wait for this next year of marriage and all the things in store for us.

Photos by Brian Davis