Tim and I will be husband and wife on May 29, 2016. We both joined ChristianMingle in early 2015. Tim is an officer in the United States Army, and at the time I was finishing up my graduate work. For us, it seemed like this was the best way to meet someone… and we were right!

After a few weeks of using the site, I came across this cute picture so I pulled up his profile and decided to send him a ‘smile’. Tim was away for a wedding at the time and a week or so later responded with a short message. We exchanged messages for a few weeks and then Tim explained that he was going away for an army training and would not be able to talk to me while he was there. I went out on a limb and gave him my email address and my phone number to see if he wanted to keep in touch after his training. Later that day I received my first text from Tim. Tim went away for his training and he was able to have his phone for a few hours one day and I heard from him, I should have realized right then and there that he was something special. Once Tim came back from his training in August he made it a great effort to take me on a date. I was a bit nervous but finally decided to meet him in Philadelphia.  I was living in the Buffalo area at the time and he was living north of Syracuse. I was going to be in Philadelphia for the weekend to visit my friend, and Tim was going to be there visiting his sister. I figured we would have one lunch date and just see where it went from there. Tim and I ended up hanging out five times that weekend. From the very beginning Tim went out of his way to be a gentleman. From that weekend on, Tim and I were able to see each other every weekend (unless he had military training).  As we started dating we grew to be each other’s best friend.

In October we found out Tim would be deploying by the following summer so we continued to make memories and allow our relationship to grow. We enjoyed road trips and getting to know each other’s friends and families.  Tim’s winter training came and we were forced to spend four weeks away from each other. I knew I wanted to marry Tim but being away from him made me know for certain he was the one.

In mid-April, Tim and I were in Philadelphia for a family wedding and while there we went to the cute park behind the art museum.  This is the area where Tim and I first met in person. My cousins and one of Tim’s sisters were with us and we were all having a good time taking pictures and doing tourist things. Tim and I were posing for a picture when I looked over and he was down on one knee. After a beautiful speech he asked me to be his wife; with many tears in my eyes, I proudly said yes! I often think back to this day and smile (really big) to myself.

Tim left for his deployment to Afghanistan in May of 2015 and should be back late February of 2016.  We have both enjoyed planning our wedding and even though the deployment is hard we are both content and happy in our relationship.

We would both like to thank ChristianMingle for the opportunity you gave us to fall in love and find our best friend to spend the rest of our lives with! It was such a blessing to find a man who had the same faith, morals and world views as I do. God is good!