I don’t have any siblings; however, my younger cousin Alyssa has always been my honorary sister. My sophomore year of high school, I would take her to the movies once a week for some girl time. One week, she asked to take her new boyfriend with us. Naturally, I threw a fit because it was our alone time together; however, she had already bought the tickets. To keep me company, she took it upon herself to invite her new boyfriend’s twin brother Waker. Needless to say the rest was history :)

Waker and I went to college 1719 miles apart with me going to USC and him going to Iowa State. The week before I left for college I told Wake we should get tattoos. Given his easy going attitude and love of spontaneity he was all in. We each picked song lyrics for the other person, and the game was we couldn’t see them until the tattoos were all done. I remember looking down at my ankle to see a lyric from Elton John’s “Your Song:” how wonderful life is while you’re in the world. I smiled.

After seven years of dating through high school, family troubles, long distance, and a major health scare recently with my mom, we are more than ready to get married. Unfortunately, we both come from large families and, after seven years, you accumulate a large group of friends. We’d love to have all of our loved ones there to celebrate our wedding with us. The 20,000 dollars would allow us to celebrate surrounded by the people that built us up. Lots of music, lots of dancing, and lots of love!