As we are getting ready to celebrate our first wedding anniversary, I wanted to share a little more about The Love Story of Tricia and Zack! Starting with our dating years. We dated for over three years before we got married and they were some of the best years of our lives! From the very beginning, we had promised each other that we would build each other up and promise to make each other better people, physically, metal and emotionally. My better half has always upheld that promise and hope that we always will. <3

How We Met

I met a (REALLY) cute boy at college who was friends with the guys living across the hall from my apartment. One evening while everyone was together, Zack and I started to talk. But I kept fumbling over all of my words and couldn’t find the right things to say. I was honestly tongue tied from being so nervous! So I did the only thing that would make me feel less awkward…  and strategically planned my exit, haha!

I texted my friend to call so I had an excuse to leave and go home. My phone rang, I answered and walked outside… But that didn’t stop him haha! I walked into the hallway and Zack followed. He took the phone from me and sparked up a conversation with my  friend,  Shelley! The whole time he was speaking in a British accent. I’m sure this was just the ice breaker I needed because I just laughed and laughed.

All three of us talked for awhile before we hung up the phone. We spent the rest of the evening playing video games with all of our friends. I was absolutely awful at every game and continue to be awful after all this time. His witty humor is one of my favorite traits about him and keeps me laughing to this day.

The First Date

We exchanged numbers that night and went on a date the next weekend. On our first date together, we went to a bookstore followed by dinner at an Italian restaurant. Pasta and books are the way to my heart and he knew it. We bought a book that day and Zack read it first. But when he finished it, he said it wasn’t worth my time reading it so I never picked it up, haha!

Dinner was super fancy complete with salad and spaghetti with meatballs. I still talk about this salad today because I have yet to see anything else like it. How do you make a salad FANCY? You bunch all of the lettuce together and wrap it tightly with a strip of cucumber.  Then when you cut the cucumber, everything unfolds into a beautifully placed appetizer. I still can’t stop thinking about it. Pasta always has a special place in my heart, it can do nothing wrong.

Zack is a total romantic and we went on plenty of fun and beautiful dates together over the years. But our most favorite date night activity was enjoying $5 Tuesdays at the movie theaters. Discounted movie nights allowed us to see almost every film released during the summers. You can still probably find us with a purse packed full of candy (shhh!) and the largest popcorn you can buy when the newest block buster hits are released.

Our Anniversary

While we were completely smitten with each other, we didn’t start dating right after we met. Actually, it was almost three years later that we made things official! On a chilly winter evening, we decided we wanted something more out of our friendship and we’ve been all in ever since 🙂

It was my birthday and we made a night of it. I bought a new dress and got my makeup done. Zack sported his best cardigan and a new haircut. We went out for dinner downtown before heading to our favorite bar at the time, which we also happened to work at too! We met our friends for happy hours and drinks. I still remember every moment of this night because it’s the same night we first said those three words to each other.

We never had an official “will you be my girlfriend/boyfriend” conversation so we never really knew when we started dating. When we talked about celebrating our anniversary the next year, we reminisced on my birthday night. But I didn’t want to celebrate both on the same day, so we chose an anniversary of December 1st. Close enough!

Dating Years

The next few years were full of fun and craziness. We were still going to school, we were bartending most weekends and Zack joined the military. We embraced long distance relationships, new careers and continued to find ourselves growing stronger together. This was just the beginning of our story 🙂

Here are some photos of us throughout the years together!

If you enjoyed this post, you can read the rest of Our Love Story here! I’ll be adding a few more posts to this series over the next week.

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