Our love story began a week before freshman year of college. A friend invited me along on her first date because she didn’t want to go alone. I thought I would just be nearby while they enjoyed their date, but her date had brought a friend too, Andreas. What was supposed to be an ordinary evening turned into the beginning of everything. We have been together ever since that day and got married in January 2026.

Our favorite memory is the night Andreas proposed. He took me to Mt. Lemmon, to the exact spot where we had our first stargazing date almost 3 years earlier. After I said yes, we sat together on the same rock looking up at the sky. In that moment, a single shooting star crossed overhead, and we both saw it at the same time. There was no other shooting star apart from that one. It felt like the universe was celebrating with us and reminding us that we were exactly where we were meant to be.

We got married in January 2026 and are still at the very beginning of building our life together. As young newlyweds, $20,000 would help us create a stronger foundation for our future, ease some of the financial pressure that comes with starting out, and allow us to focus more on our goals instead of simply keeping up with expenses. It would be a meaningful head start for the life we’re working toward together.