our first date

As you may know, if you’ve been here before, Matt and I got married June 24, 2017 in Nashville, TN. What you may not know is…

…How it started

Matt and I met at a transition point in both of our lives. In September 2015, I had finished my Route 66 road trip and was living on Sugar Camp Farm in Bon Aqua, TN – about an hour from Nashville – and he had just completed a two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and had decided to come home for a few months to work and save money before beginning college at BYU in Provo, UT in January.

We really first talked to each other after church in Nashville one day – it was a special Sunday where we had a potluck after church. I had brought homemade sweet potato chips – straight from the farm. To be honest, they didn’t look the most appealing (it was my first time making them), but they sure tasted better than the store-bought ones people kept choosing to eat instead. Matt, however, seemed to be enjoying them. He came over and talked to me. We chatted for a few minutes and he seemed nice. It didn’t take long before he just directly asked if I wanted to go get ice cream the next night. I was very unprepared for this question. Like, do I want to date? Was it even a “date”? Either way, as I told Lizzie when I got back to the farm that night – even though I initially said yes, I didn’t want to go. One date leads to another date, and before you know it, you're in a relationship, and then you're engaged, and then married. I was adamantly not ready for a relationship let alone anything else. I told Matt yes, then… I cancelled.

Soon, I moved from the farm into the city. I saw him again at another church activity not long after, and he asked again about ice cream. This time, I felt I had no excuse not to. Trying not to overthink it, I said yes.

The next night, we met at Jeni's Ice Cream on 12 South. This was actually a small miracle because Jeni’s was my absolute favorite ice cream place and he changed it from another place that was going to close earlier than he thought. So whether it was a date or not, I was so happy to go.

He bought my ice cream for me which was really nice, and maybe a sign that it was a date. Or maybe this was that Southern gentleman thing they do to be nice. In any case, I got my favorite ice cream.

We sat by the window and just talked for awhile. I realized he was easy to talk to, and it was also getting later. By 11pm we had finished our ice creams long before, and I felt like he was a cool guy and made me laugh. As I was thinking it would be fun to drive into downtown, he suggested it. So we got in his car and first got a picture in front of the “I believe in Nashville” mural and then drove through Honky Tonk Row.

Our first photo together.

I joked that we could go into one of the bars and sing karaoke, but that’s when he told me he wouldn’t be allowed into the bar — he was 20 years old. I knew he was younger than me but hearing it out loud felt a little strange – four years felt significant. That was really the only time that I thought about his age, though, the rest of the time was just fun.

Once we got back to the parking lot where my car was next to Jeni’s, we continued to stay in his car and talk. I don’t remember everything we talked about, but I did open up about more personal things. Things I wouldn’t necessarily say on a first date or hang out or whatever this was. But it felt really comfortable to be around him.

When it got to be about 1am, we both realized we should probably go home and go to bed. Before the end though, he asked what I was doing Friday. At this point I was still nervous — is he going to ask me on a second date? (In all seriousness, I had never formally been on a “second date,” or, in case you can’t tell, formally dated very much in general – my previous relationship started as a friendship.)

And then he asked….

…if he could set me up on a blind date with his best friend who was coming into town that weekend. It would be a group date and he would be there with another person.

Honestly, I was so relieved. This meant, or at least I thought it meant, that he wasn’t so into me to go out for a second date, but he liked me enough to set me up on a date with his best friend. He was younger than me and he was moving to Utah in a couple months, so going out again seemed pointless. But we could be friends, and still being new to Nashville, that’s really all I wanted.

I drove home really happy that the “date” wasn’t a total disaster or anything. In fact it was the opposite of disaster. It was really awesome. And I looked forward to the group date on Friday.

How it went

The blind date was fun and I enjoyed hanging out. Obviously, it didn’t work out with Matt’s friend – he was only there for the weekend, after all. And down the road, he found someone great and got married just a few weeks before Matt and I did (spoiler!).

After the group date, Matt and I would always be planning group hang-outs, but for whatever reason, people would cancel, and things always ended up just the two of us. Our friendship grew into a trusted relationship. After several serious talks about our potential relationship at Waffle House, we eventually decided that it was worth the risk — and the long-distance — and we made it official on November 22, 2015.

which, just as I predicted…

…led to more dates,

then to our engagement,

and then to our wedding.

This June, we will have been married four years! Time really flies. I’ve grown a lot in this relationship – especially in this wild past year, 2020. I know I’ll continue to learn more as time goes on. And I’m really glad this guy who I didn’t want to go on a date with is now my partner for eternity.