Since I was 13 I've loved stalking other people's "love story" blog posts. Wedding planning has been so crazy and hectic I almost forgot that it's finally my turn to write one now! I couldn't resist the cliches and the cheesiness and I love the way our story played out so much. One night, when Dylan first got home from his mission, we were on the phone at 2 am talking about all our history. I said something along the lines of "the book of Dyl & Mads is pretty long already" and he said something cute (how I knew he was still trying to win me over) like "will we keep writing it?" So for me, Dylan, friends, family, posterity, and anyone else that wants to know... here is a detailed part 1 in the book of Dyl & Mads:
C H A P E T E R 1 -
Totally Friend Zoned
Going wayyy back to the very beginning. Summer of 2014 we started hanging out with the same group of friends. The first time I met him was at my friend Sydney's Gatsby themed sweet 16 BUT he came with another one of my girl friends (haha).
He actually took me on my first date EVER- September 6th, 2014. I remember that because it was one day after my 16th birthday. It was just a group date set up by our other friends, definitely nothing serious. We went on a photo scavenger hunt, having to do silly challenges all around town and take pictures of them. Somehow I don't have any of those pictures though.
We kept hanging out really casually and he took me to homecoming a few weeks later too. I was excited about it but kept my cool and told friends I "only like him if he likes me back."
I think it's so funny when I look back on these nights! I remember trying so hard to keep the conversation exciting to be a fun homecoming date and Dylan awkwardly cuddling with me at the end of the night just because that's what all the other couples were doing.
I got the message that he only wanted to be friends and wasn't heartbroken because I was "playing it cool" all along! I always tell people it was because he was the basketball and volleyball star with the great hair and I was just the student council nerd who posted on her blog and made videos (it's ok though, it obviously all worked out for me!)
C H A P T E R 2 -
Reconnecting!!
After we faded out in 2014 we stayed friends but weren't very close! We'd always be excited to see each other at parties or other random encounters but we were both dating other people and honestly didn't think about each other much. I have such a vivid memory of seeing him after a few months at a New Years Eve party ringing in 2016, chatting for a second on the stairs as he was walking up and I was walking down. SUPER casual!
Spring 2016 was the first time we were both single at the same time since junior year. I had no date to senior prom and was so devastated. One night I called my friend Hannah who happened to be hanging out with a bunch of friends and Dylan that night. I was telling her about how sad I was that I didn't have a date and all of a sudden Dylan took the phone and told me he'd take me! He went to a different high school so the prom he was had already asked somebody to was on a different day. I was so happy that he wanted to take me and so sentimental about him being my first dance date and then last dance date!
Prom was super fun but I didn't think of it as anything more than friendly until that night when he dropped me off. Dyl tried to kiss me and I panicked and said that I didn't want to kiss on the first date! I just didn't expect that at all because I'd been in the friend zone for the past 2 years.
I kept my guard up for one or two more dates but thankfully he kept persisting. One day we went on a date to the LDS Temple together to do baptisms (the same place we'll be married too!) He was just about to leave on his 2 year mission so we were in that ~spiritual temple date~ mindset haha. After going to the temple we went to Broadway Pizza (the same pizza we'll have at our wedding luncheon!) and he kissed me in the car before going home.
From then on we were dating but I still had big reservations because he would be leaving to Florida for his mission in a month. I thought he just wanted to have a little fling before he left, and he's admitted that kind of was his mindset.
The day he left was so heartbreaking for me. Even though we only dated for a little bit I still felt his absence HARD. I remember him saying bye to all of our friends there one by one and I was the last one he said bye to. He gave me his volleyball t-shirt and his pressed boutonniere from prom and I gave him a stack of "open when" letters for him to read at certain milestones on his mission.
C H A P T E R 3 -
2 Years In Florida
I think part of what was so hard for me when he left was the uncertainty. We agreed that we'd write each other and talk when he had a chance to email once a week too just see where things went. I didn't promise anything big and to his major disappointment and my regret I dated a couple boys while he was gone. Since we'd only dated for a month before he left, and I was pretty sure even that was a fling, I didn't want to be too invested in him and get my heart broken! I didn't realize it at the time but I definitely played "the game" to stay safe.
Still though, I looked forward to every single Monday when he would email me and checked the mail box, always hoping for a letter. We'd also send each other voice recordings about our weeks and it made me so happy and so sad to hear his voice. (I can admit this because we're getting married and hopefully that makes it not creepy) but I would sometimes even fall asleep to his voice recordings when I missed him a LOT. To this day I have them all saved to my iTunes and will listen to them when they come on shuffle in my car.
I was trying hard to not be a crazy missionary girlfriend blogger but I worked so hard on his one year package I couldn't resist making a post about it!!
Even though it was such a hard and weird 2 years, I am so proud of this part of our story. I'm proud of the MANY things that he accomplished in Fort Lauderdale and I'm proud of the girl I grew into while he was away. I think it built the best foundation for our relationship because he genuinely became my best friend. I was able to lean on letters and voice recordings from a kind and familiar voice during some of my hardest trials. I know I was able to do the same for him. The best way I can describe most of the time he was gone was just sweet. Maybe that's seeing it through rose colored glasses but I know we went through everything that came with it for a reason! While he was gone he genuinely just became my best friend.
C H A P T E R 4 -
Trying To Play It Cool (Again) When He Came Home
By the time he came home we were both really unsure about what was going on. I had dated other boys and we wrote half as much as we did during most of his mission. I still went to the airport to welcome him home. Leading up to that day I was so nervous and excited but while it was actually happening I felt totally peaceful. This freaked me out because I knew it either meant the spark was just gone or that he was literally the one!
We had a second first date when he came home making arepas, a food he learned to make on his mission, and watching Black Panther (the only movie that came out while he was gone he cared to see). I remember feeling so insecure that we had 2 years to catch up on but were just sitting there watching a movie! He also kept holding my hand and making little moves on me but I was trying to stick by my 3 date rule. I ended up caving and we had our second first kiss when I walked him out to his car that night.
Things started to get real when we had the opportunity to go back to Florida to visit his mission. We used my dad's flight benefits and stayed with a family he became friends with there but still I don't know how we were able to swing that trip.
I think that's when I really fell in love with him though! You have to be a special person to go back and visit somebody's mission with them so I finally realized this boy wanted me around for real. Some of my favorite memories with him were on that trip. He'd sing along to songs in the car on the way to the beach and we read back all the letters I'd written him. One day we woke up at 5 am to watch the sunrise on the beach. We brought a breakfast picnic with local favorite foods he picked out for me. Literally out of a movie! I would do anything to relive that day!
I can't even put into words how much of a dream visiting Florida was for me. While he was gone I would always imagine him taking me back to the places he wrote about. I couldn't believe after all the days of hoping and wishing, I was actually there with him! It seriously was so many dreams come true and gives me butterflies just thinking about it.
C H A P T E R 5 -
Ok This Is Actually Happening
So all my guards still weren't 100% down. I was scared we'd start dating and then he'd tell me he wanted to date other girls and wasn't ready to commit because he'd just gotten home. I'd heard that story happen to so many of my friends and I didn't want to risk it. I knew that if we started dating and then broke up we wouldn't get back together. I thought if I let him go wild and date around THEN settle down with me it would last. It took him a few months to convince me that he was here to stay and only wanted me.
I think we officially started dating on a night we were actually fighting about me thinking he needed to date other girls. He said something along the lines of "I just don't know how else to show you that I love you." After that L-word night, I was in it for good. I knew I loved him too and hearing him say it first made all of my worries go away. It's so weird for me to think that something we tell each other 50 times a day now was SUCH a big deal at that point.
The first time we talked about getting married was probably a month after that BUT we talked about taking things slowly and NOT talking about it. We were engaged 3 months after that so obviously the whole slow thing didn't go according to plan haha.
Dylan proposed to me by tricking me into thinking we were picking up flowers for his "sick aunt". I knew it was coming soon so I thought of pretty much every possible scenario of how he could propose during what we had planned for the day. I thought about the possibility of him proposing at the flower shop the night before but completely missed the giant projector screen set up on the wall when we walked in so I was still happy and surprised. He planned every detail perfectly for me to not even suspect a thing. We sat down to watch a slideshow he made of all our photos together and at the end of it he surprised me with a ring even more beautiful than the one I expected. I will NEVER live down the moment that I put it on myself though haha!
I'm so excited to be married to my man and for the rest of our story to unfold!
If you were to have told my 15 year old self that I would marry Dylan Hafen I never would have believed it. I feel so lucky I'm the girl he picked!
