Our Story
Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl who were best friends. The boy woke up one day and realized he loved the girl. The girl fell in love with him back. They are now madly in love and happily engaged!
The Real Deal
Kevin's Side
Part I
The story of me and the love of my life is no short thing. We often hear of things being beautiful in their simplicity, but over the past four years I’ve found the most beautiful gift in the complexity that is my continual pursuit of and relationship with Grace Anne Woodson.
I first met Grace my sophomore year of high school at Christian Heritage School, Trumbull, CT. Having been at this one school 12 out of 13 years of schooling, I had become very comfortable with my group of friends and my way of life as it was there. So, I was fairly reserved around those new students that came to CHS later on. Grace was one such student and rightly so, she was the one to come up to me and introduce herself a couple weeks into our sophomore year. My first impressions of Grace included being impressed by her spunk, confidence, originality and of course, her pretty face. I was immediately fond of her and looked forward to a friendship with her, but had no idea what God had in mind for us.
Grace and I were both the type of kids in high school to not be satisfied unless they had a hand in way too many activities. Sports, worship leading, student government, ensembles, musicals, you name it. The good thing about this for us was that it gave us plenty of time to get to know each other, be ourselves around each other, and learn what makes the other tick. Junior year of high school was filled with these kind of times and Grace became one of my closest friends at school. It’s strange to look back now and recreate in my mind the interactions that I had with this girl who was, at the time, just a close friend, but would soon become my fiancé. I feel like part of me always knew that there was something special about Grace, and that I could almost foresee us together, but another part of me, at the time, never thought it would be a reality and certainly saw Grace as way out of my league; the beautiful cheerleader for the quiet music kid. This still amazes me to this day!
Senior year of high school is when things started to get fun. Our friendship continued and even grew into the start of our final year at CHS, but I had no idea what was about to hit me. There are often stories of love at first sight and although this wasn’t my first sight of Grace, it happened instantaneously all the same. It was the last school day before Thanksgiving break and I was saying goodbye to everyone when I came up to Grace to wish her a happy break. I went to high-five her and as we did, our fingers interlocked and I held her hand, scandalous I know. It was at this moment that God decided to drop the bomb on me all at once and let me know that I was in love with Grace. It sounds random, but it was that very moment holding hands that I realized I was and really had always been in love with her.
From that point on, my senior year was absorbed with spending as much time as possible with my love and letting her know, in the most subtle ways, how much she meant to me. Now they needed to be subtle because Grace was not exactly single at the time and that last thing I wanted to do was to get in the middle of her existing relationship. Plus, although I was deeply in love with her, I still never thought I would ever see the day of actually being with her. She still seemed vastly unattainable for my little self. Despite this, I still felt it my duty to pursue that senior year without really pursuing her; to try to spend every second with her and put my best foot forward without trying to steal her from her boyfriend. This involved sitting next to her in class, inviting her to my basketball and baseball games, convincing her to come to my band’s shows, and even joining our school’s musical so I could spend long practice hours with her after school. This musical was especially important and really if it was not for us being in Beauty and the Beast together, who knows where we’d be right now. By some random fortune, I got the lead part of Gaston and Grace was the student choreographer as well as one of the “silly girls” (who fortunately for me fawned over Gaston most of the musical). It was the many hours spent rehearsing, encouraging each other, bouncing ideas off each other, and just living that big chunk of life together that drew us even closer and solidified the fact that I had a certified crush on Grace Anne Woodson.
I definitely think of my senior year of high school as one of the best years of my life so far. Most of what made this year so great was the many memories involving my pursuit of Grace and also a couple of occasions of her sending some hints to me in return. Some of these must be recounted here in order to fully understand our story. Some may not seem like the most significant, but they meant the world to me. The first involves Spirit Week and “twin day.” It was April, the day before twin day and, oddly enough, both Grace and I still hadn’t found our twins. So, we jokingly decided to be twins and decided to wear a band t-shirt I had two of and green pants. It was an outfit beautiful in its utter ridiculousness. Still, what made that day so great was the few comments from teachers asking us if we were dating when they saw that we were twins. Although we were quick to say “no,” just the question made me smile.
The next story should be prefaced with the fact that she was no longer dating her boyfriend by early April, so as to not portray myself as a shameless home-wrecker. This was what can be considered our first date. Grace and I decided to go to the “Spring Fling” together, which was a semi-formal banquet type event. I was super excited about the night and thought longer about how I looked and what I was wearing than ever before. Grace looked beautiful that night and I felt just a little undeserving. Nevertheless, we had a wonderful time with each other and all our friends at our table. I had heard that there would be an open-mic after the dinner, so I prepared an acoustic song I had been writing for Grace and played it at the end of the night for everyone in the gym. She seemed to love it and I was quite proud of myself; I’m not going to lie.
We come to the end of senior year and no matter how close moving on from high school and on to new lives at college seemed, I still knew that I could do nothing less than pursue Grace with everything I had. And while I was busy doing just this, Grace spurred me with a few surprising hints herself. One of these happened a few weeks before the big Senior Banquet (our school’s version of a prom). Both Grace and I hadn’t committed to going with anyone yet, so I was thinking of a good way to ask her. Before I had gotten up the courage to ask her myself, I hear Grace’s voice come over the intercom at the end of a school day asking me to go to Banquet with her, with the whole school listening. I was ecstatic, but said that I didn’t really want to go to banquet anymore. Ha! Just joking, I ran down the hallway to the office and blurted out the fastest “YEAH!” ever. We had a beautiful time at the banquet and I loved every minute of it. We left each other that night as friends, but realized the unmistakable connection we had, although it was still unspoken up until this point.
Stay tuned for Part II…
The Real Deal
Grace's Side
"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." This one of Kevin's favorite quotes by Martin Luther and is very telling about the type of person Kevin is. He is a natural optimist and has a heart for the world around him. This is the man that I love.
Throughout our life, we have always gravitated towards each other. This has a lot to do with the fact that we make each other laugh and love to listen to the same type of music.
In high school we would often send notes to each other with hearts on them which we called "stomachs". As his "Cheerleader", it was my job to cheer him on and send him notes to encourage him before his basketball games. I loved coming up with creative ways to encourage him.
After watching Pride and Prejudice one night, my mother told me that she thought that Kevin was my "Mr. Darcy." I was shocked and denied that this was the case, but I could see elements of this character in Kevin. Mr. Darcy is handsome, pensive, and honest. Kevin has always reminded me of many literary heroes and would I often tell him so in our English class that we had together. Let's just say, Kevin had many nicknames.
Towards the end of our senior year in high school, Kevin wrote me a song and played it for me in front of the school at our Spring Fling and performed the song my 18th birthday as well. My friend looked over to me and said, "Grace, I think he loves you." This shocked me. I had always looked up to Kevin as a person, but never thought of him in such a way.
Soon after my Bible teacher asked me the infamous question, "Are you and Kevin dating?" I can not say that this question shocked me as much as I articulated that it did in my response to my teacher because by this time I had already began to view Kevin as the type of person I could see myself with.
Feelings were stirring in my heart for Kevin and a week before Senior banquet, I took the plunge and went on the loud speaker at school to ask Kevin to attend the Senior banquet with me. He met me halfway in the hallway and gave me the biggest hug and said a very enthusiastic, "Yes!" Little did I know, he had been in love with me for quite some time by then and I would soon need to figuratively meet him halfway.
Kevin finally revealed his feelings for me on the trip home from our senior trip. "Grace, my feelings for you have changed," he said, as the plane set off. I was speechless and told him that I simply could not date him because I did not feel like I could give him 100%. Kevin understood, but made clear to me that he truly loved me and would wait for me as long as I needed him to. Kevin simply wouldn't let me go and I am so glad he didn't.
After spending a day together after graduation, I showed Kevin a bridge I used to play on as a kid over a pond near my house (the place where he later proposed) and he kissed me there for the first time. My world went spinning after that day. This boy who I had so loved as a friend was becoming more than just a friend and I never wanted to hurt him. So, the next day I told him that I was not ready for a relationship and told him that it would be best if we did not talk to each other for a while. It started to rain and he refused to leave me. He told me over and over that he loved me, but I had made up my mind that this would be the best course of action.
That following week, he was so upset that couldn't sleep and he decided to make me a long board with my name painted on the bottom to give to me as a present. He contacted me and asked me if we could meet up. He surprised me with this beautiful long board and for the rest of the summer Kevin would bring me Starbucks and go long boarding with me. We spent every day together and at the end of the summer, I finally told him that I really did like him. Unfortunately, this was the week before we were to leave for college and he was heading off to Chicago and I was leaving for Virginia. The day I left for college he had driven to my house at 3 am and then back to his house so that I could walk out of the door and read a letter he had given me. In the letter he assured me that he would pursue me forever and that there would be many more handwritten letters to come.
Time went by and surely he kept his promise. Every day he wrote me a letter telling me how much I meant to him and how much he was willing to wait for me. My friends and I decided to take a road trip to Wheaton where Kevin went to college. It was then that Kevin and I were able to go on our first official date to a restaurant that served Chilean food. Kevin had remembered me telling him that my great grandma who was very dear to me passed away a couple years prior. So, he gave me a night to help remember her. It was beautiful.
On the final day of my trip to Wheaton, he made all of my favorite foods and took me on a picnic. Kevin had continually pursued me to officially begin dating, but I insisted that when the time was right we would become official.
That Thanksgiving, Kevin came to Massachusetts with my family to celebrate. In the morning, Kevin asked my father permission to date me and that night Kevin and I went to the train station to drop my sister off so that she could go back to NYC. At the train station, it began raining outside, so Kevin and I decided to dance in the rain. It was there he asked me to be his official girlfriend and I finally accepted!
Kevin had told me he loved me for a long time at this point and I knew I was falling in love with him. One day, I had a horrible dream that Kevin had been in trouble and I cried so hard that my pillow was drenched. It was a long time coming, but I finally realized that I could not bare to live without him and that I truly loved him.
For Christmas, I made a video where I interviewed our friends and family to ask them why they loved him and at the end I told Kevin why I loved him. It was so wonderful to finally let him know how I felt!
The past 3 years have gone by so fast, but they have been so beautiful. We have had our ups and our downs, but God has brought us through. I am so blessed to have a man like Kevin in my life and I can not wait to spend forever with him. While I know that we will have sunny days and rainy days, I also know that similar to that day at the train station, through it all we'll always keep our dancing shoes on.
Engagement Story
Christmas Day
Holiday lights
Family laughter
Christmas package
Opened up to a love letter
"Meet me at our bridge"
Wind against my face
Snow falls lightly above me
Go through the brush to see my love
To the place of our first kiss
Full now of snow and garland and decorations
The bridge where we declared our love
The bridge that we declared our own
3 years of things to say
Somehow he found the way
Followed by a bend of knee and, "Will you marry me?"
A day revolving around the birth of Christ
A marriage to represent a covenant with Christ
A man who I love with my whole heart
A beautiful ring with world of meaning
Arose from me an, "Of Course!"
Everything I ever wanted it to be
The family gathered around to see
They laughed and cheered
We shed some tears
To see a real life fairytale come true
<3
