Happy Valentine’s Week! In the spirit of the month of love, and also the fact that around this time five years ago a cutie at Texas A&M University came into my life and stole my heart… I felt like today’s Wedding Wednesday was the perfect opportunity to share how we met!
Short version: Drew and I met through mutual friends— but that also doesn’t cover any of the fun parts. So, here’s how it happened…
December of 2014
I was getting ready to go to dinner with my family back in my hometown of Fairfield over Christmas break when my sweet friend Blair text me something along the lines of “why do all my guy friends want to date you” (in reality it was just 1… Drew!) followed with a picture of Drew and his name. Naturally, I immediately took to Facebook to creep and remembered meeting him at a semi formal that fall where he was Blair’s date (they were just good friends, I didn’t steal her man!) My interactions with him were very brief at the semi formal, we didn’t have a conversation, but I remembered two things about him: he took a picture of Blair and I together, and I remembered specifically making eye contact with him while he was dancing and I was standing next to a heater 🙂
Side note: Apparently I had actually met him for the first time earlier that spring, he remembered it, I vaguely did (not really!) Drew knew from a couple of his friends exactly who I was (Thetas and BYX guys hung out a lot so faces were always familiar), but didn’t want to be creepy and make a move too early. Nearly a year later, it all started to workout.
Fast forward to our return to school for spring semester at the end of January, Blair invited me to join her and a group of friends (Drew + a few more) to go bowling. Turns out this was plot #1 for Drew to causally “hang around me.” We had a great night and a good conversation, but that was that and then we went our separate ways.
A couple days later, and Blair invites me to a Super Bowl party… at Drew and his roommate’s house! Cue Plot #2 for a casual hangout to be around me more. Come to find out, he planned that party and invited people over solely to be able to spend more time with me… smooth! I talked with him a little bit more that night, but again it didn’t progress past a couple of good conversations.
Then comes Plot #3 I’m not quite sure how we ended up there, or who’s idea it was… but myself, Drew, our mutual friend Morgan (my roommate + Drew’s high school friend) and several of my Theta friends ended up going to a carnival in the parking lot of the College Station mall. LOL! I must have really wanted to spend more time with him, because I’m not about a sketchy mall carnival! Drew had been texting Morgan because he knew we were good friends and lived in the Theta house together, and he wanted to arrange another “casual hangout” where we were both together in the same group! So, to the carnival we went! We walked around, rode lots of crappy dirty rides, and had so much fun! Before the night was over Drew finally ended up with my phone number, and we were all smiles.
The next day, I was supposed to be studying, but then the cute boy started texting me. Coincidentally, or maybe not coincidentally at all, he was also needing to study that day! He asked me if I’d like to go to the library with him and we could both study for our upcoming tests. Of course I said yes and he picked me up later that night to go to the library. God has a funny sense of humor, because when we got to the library is was closed for some reason, and the library is NEVER closed. That specific library was always open all throughout the night, so that was odd. We tried a couple more places, but they were too crowded, so finally we ended up driving around campus until Drew parked and we decided to go up to a rooftop garden he knew about on campus. Turns out said rooftop garden was not actually there, that or we had the wrong building! So we ended up sitting on top of a random building talking for an hour or so getting to know each other. Once we left we went to Starbucks to get some hot chocolate, he later told me he doesn’t even really like hot chocolate, he was just trying to drag the night out… smooth!
I think we ended up getting together every night that next week to “study” but really we just spent time talking to each other, distracting one another from truly studying. I don’t think I got a dang thing accomplished that week because when I was “studying” I was really just mindlessly looking at my laptop screen thinking about him and making sure I was playing it cool in front of him! By mid-week he asked me one night before leaving if I would like to go on a date with him. YES! Of course I once again tried to play it cool, but on the inside I was SO excited! That Friday night he took me on our first date!
Our First Date:
February 13, 2015. I’ll never forget getting ready for that date. I was living in the theta house and me and my roommate Erin went through literally every single piece of my clothing…and hers… and I could not find a SINGLE thing to wear. Lord knows I had plenty of things to wear! So, about an hour before the date we raced to the mall to buy something new of course. Looking back on my sophomore year of college fashion sense, I still laugh at the fact that I bought what I did to wear on that date. It’s not something I’d go out and buy today, that’s for sure, but hey I thought it was cute then, so whatever! Anyway… I raced back home in time to get ready and then Drew came and picked me up. When I got inside his truck he handed me a green envelope labeled 1 for dinner. He had me close my eyes and draw a slip of paper out of the envelope with the name of a restaurant on in it. I drew a Mexican food place in downtown Bryan, and off we went, on my last first date ever. It was my kind of night… Tex-Mex and a super sweet and cute guy by my side. Once we left the restaurant Drew handed me another envelope this time labeled 2 for dessert. I drew out another choice and we drove to the location, although smarty pants failed to check on the places beforehand and it was permanently closed… and Drew had in reality only put one option on all three cards inside! So we found a candy shop near downtown, and enjoyed some chocolate strawberries together, brownie points for Drew— one of my very favorite desserts. After dessert when we got back into his truck he handed me the last envelope to pick something to do after dinner. I picked one and it said “go to Lake Bryan to look at stars.” So, that’s what we did! And it was perfect. We sat on the bed of his truck and talked for a couple hours, and we probably could have stayed there all night talking and getting to know each other more. I think I immediately started falling in love with him that night. He checked so many boxes right off the bat of everything I ever wanted in a future husband. He was sweet, humble, caring, hilarious, but most importantly, his love for the Lord shined throughout everything he said and did all night, but not in a way that he had to tell me how Godly he was, he just showed me. It was the best first date of my life, and the beginning of the sweetest chapter I’ve had thus far.
February 14, 2015
It just so happened our first date was the night before Valentines day, and even though it had only been a week of talking and one date, we became very close quickly. The day after our date I had to wake up early to drive to Dallas the next morning to go evening gown shopping for Miss Texas that year. I woke up and got ready and then when I walked downstairs and out the back door of the theta house I opened the door to see a dozen red roses on the doormat with a note that said “Madison Fuller” and inside all it said was “so there’s this bee keeper…” an inside joke from our night at the carnival a few days earlier. I probably smiled the entire 3 hour drive that morning to Dallas. Normally I’d stay the night in Fairfield and then just go back to College Station the next morning, but that day after shopping in Dallas I rushed back to College Station to see him again. We watched the movie Valentine’s Day (my fav vday tradition) and that was our first Valentines day together! I don’t think I went another day without seeing him after that first date for several weeks, we were inseparable. In March we made it official, and by summer I knew without a doubt I’d marry Drew Evans one day.
Almost 5 years later, I could not be more grateful for the human that God created for me. I praise Him for creating this story for Drew and I to share our lives together. So the final thing I want to say is this… no matter what stage of life you are in, trust God, and that it is all a part of His perfect plan and story for your life. He is good, and He is faithful, and His love far exceeds any earthly love we could ever have. Trust Him, His timing, and the story He is writing for you, because you never know what He might have coming in the next chapter.
And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:27-28
xx,
Madison
