Title: Michelle & Matthew

Date: October 22, 2011

Matt and Michelle met five years ago when they were neighbors in an apartment complex.  (Although, Matt attests they met previously in Cherry Hall on Western’s campus - Michelle says she doesn’t remember – Matt says he remembers watching her walking to class and always thought she was beautiful).

While they were neighbors Michelle would always peek out to see if Matt was on his front porch, and if he was, she would casually wander onto her front porch as well.  (She also hovered near windows when he was coming and going, trying to catch a wave from him).

One night, Michelle decided to take the plunge- she was going to invite Matt to hang out with her.  She was very nervous and came up with a silly reason to knock on his door: there was a car parked out front with its lights still on.  She took a big breath, sauntered across the hallway, and knocked on his door.  He opened the door and Michelle preceeded to warn him about the car out front with the lights and if it was his, he should go turn them off so as not to run down the battery.  Matt then replied, “You know I don’t drive that car, you’ve seen me in my white truck.”  Red in the face, Michelle asked Matt to come join her friends in her apartment, he came over with his friends and they’ve been together ever since!

April 2, 2011

Brent and I have known each other for a long time.  Our families have both been members of the same church for many years.  We both were very active in our church youth group, except that given the age difference we were never in the youth group together.

Flash forward to the Summer of 2007.  Brent had moved back to Nashville and I was working at our church as the Children’s Intern.  During Children’s Vacation Bible School several of the ladies at church began talking about Brent Byrd and how he was such a good catch!  My exact words were “No not never would I ever date Brent Byrd!”  (Little did I know what God had in store!)

Move along to August of 2009. Brent and I both began attending a new Sunday School class at church.  The class was made up primarily of young couples and a handful of single people (Handful= Me and Brent).  I noticed he was in the class, but never really thought twice.  He later admitted to seeing me in class one of the first weeks and thinking I had cute feet!!  Late one Saturday Brent messaged me on Facebook.  I will still never forget the mix of questions that were going around in my head…which throughly confused me!  (Remember, “No Not ever…”)  Chatting on Facebook led to him flirting with me at church (He still won’t admit it), and then on September 23 we had coffee at Starbucks.

That night at Starbucks I knew that Brent Byrd was something special!  We talked for hours, even as my roommates made a “drive by” to check out the situation, our conversation never ceased!  When we finally decided to leave for the night Brent hugged me not once, but twice.  I knew something exciting was beginning, but still counted it all as a friendship.

Things progressed at a rapidly slow pace.  We didn’t rush into things and we both actually kind of fought the idea of a relationship.

Around the New Year things began to move along a bit faster.  One night we were sitting in the church parking lot after Wednesday night church and it was different.  Both Brent and I knew that we were beginning to fall in love, and nothing we did was going to stop that from happening.

Soon after that, I left for Florida for several months for work.

It was February and I came home from Florida for a long weekend (keep in mind I had only been gone for 3 weeks)!  Things were different, in very good ways.

Spring forward…after I came home from Florida things were even more different.  Conversations of the future changed from “whomever I marry” to “if we get married” to then a little bit later “when we get married!”  We slowly began planning our lives together.    Brent continues to intrigue me each day with his love for Christ and leading worship.  We both love being able to do God’s simple commandment of telling other’s about Christ.

The summer came and went!  During this time we began looking at houses, rings, and talking about a Spring wedding.  Brent had his “unofficial/official” list of things that we wanted to do…get a new job (check), find a house/apartment (check), and THEN buy a ring (CHECK)!!!  He joked about buying a ring and a house in the same day.  Little did I know that the day we went to look at apartments before Thanksgiving(we decided there were too many transitions in our life to continue to make an official decision on buying a house), was the same day he purchased my ring!

The proposal was PERFECT!!!  It was us…which I loved!!  We had planned on eating dinner with Brent’s family on a Sunday night.  When that fell through Brent was still very eager to spend time with me that night (which I loved because I had already gotten to spend so much time with him over Thanksgiving…if you can survive camping at Target the night before Black Friday, I believe you can survive almost anything)!  We ate at Buffalo Wild Wings (In that parking lot months earlier I officially received the title of “Brent Byrd’s girlfriend”), then we got Starbucks (the sight of our first date and where secretly I thought he might “pop” the question someday), then we headed to Opryland Hotel to look at the Christmas lights.  As we walked in each area of the hotel Brent kept talking about this one waterfall that you can walk around.  As a child I remember trying my hardest to reach into the waterfall to get the tips of my fingers wet without falling in!  We were so excited when we found the waterfall.  Of course we both reached in to get the tips of our fingers wet, but this time I didn’t have to worry about falling in because Brent was holding my other hand and keeping me from falling in!  I began to walk about the waterfall to continue through the path when Brent suggested we sit on a bench for a couple minutes.  My heart did a little flip flop thinking that maybe he was going to propose, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.  We sat and talking about silly things, serious things, and us!  Brent then asked me if I could really picture spending the rest of my life with him.  My response, joking of course, was “uggh I don’t know!”  And there in the Magnolia Gardens on a park bench that I had sat on many times as a child and dreamed up what God had in my future, Brent Byrd asked me to marry him!!!  And of course I said “YES!”