"It’s literally a story of love at first sight."

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Candace, 27, and David, 28, met in 2004 in Montville, New Jersey. They were married in 2012 and now live in Roseland, New Jersey.

"I was walking by, and I happened to notice David in passing at lunch one day. It’s literally a story of love at first sight. David reached out on AIM and said he looked me up in the yearbook. We later met at a mutual friend’s house, and went on our first date, which was coffee and bowling. We both went on to different college and stayed together — lots of driving up on the weekends to see each other.

I feel like there’s a lot of stigma around high school sweethearts. I was 23 and David was 25 [when we got married], and a lot of people questioned that we were as young as we were, but having grown up together and going through regular teenage stuff and prom together, it was like we grew up and matured together. I feel that our bond is much stronger than the average person’s relationship, just in the sense that we were kids when we met." —Candace

"When you’re in your 20s, you think, ’I have my whole life ahead of me,’ but when you get to this age, you’re like, ’I don’t want to waste any time.’"

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Jennifer, 47, and Steve, 48, met in 1984 at in Miami, Florida. They were married in 2014 and now live in Raleigh, North Carolina.

"We met at the mall, like all kids in the `80s. Everyone assumed that we were going to get married because we were really close and my parents loved him, but that’s a lot of pressure out of high school to get married. The summer after high school, by August, we had broken up.

We found each other on Facebook in 2010 but were both involved with other people. It got very intense very quickly when we were both single at the same time. We connected as potential partners in 2013, and then we got married in 2014. When you’re in your 20s, you think, I have my whole life ahead of me, but when you get to this age, you’re like, I don’t want to waste any time. If this is something that’s going to materialize, you want to take advantage of it. He said he’d thought of me throughout the years, he said, ’I always thought back to you and thought, Wow, that was the love of my life and I let her go.’ By the time we met again in our mid-40s, we knew exactly who we were, who we wanted. When people say, ’Oh my gosh, you were high school sweethearts, what’s your secret,’ I say, ’The secret is being apart for 30 years.’" —Jennifer

"He was wearing a lime green Hollister polo, and was extremely tan and handsome."

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Brittany, 28, and Eric, 28, met in Morgan City, Louisiana. They are now married, living in the city where they met.

"My husband and I met after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. My family had to evacuate to Morgan City, Louisiana, to live with my grandmother. The second night in the city, some of the girls from my new high school were gracious enough to take me to dinner with them. As we were walking in to the restaurant, he was walking out with some of his friends. Even though it’s been over 10 years, I can still remember every detail of that moment. He was wearing a lime green Hollister polo, and was extremely tan and handsome. He stopped to talk to us and introduced himself to me. Funny how neither one of us knew we were shaking the hand of our future spouse.

In December 2005, I was singing in a musical raising money for Katrina victims. He came to watch and support me. After the play, he offered to take me out to eat for a job well done … the first of many dates. He had a single rose waiting for me on the seat of my car.

I feel like marrying your high school sweetheart has this stigma around it. I think being able to go through some of life’s greatest milestones together not only makes your relationship stronger, but more meaningful. We can say that we actually grew up together. Because we did. I hope when we are together for 50 years, both old, wrinkly, and decrepit, we can look into each other’s eyes and see not an old man or woman, but ourselves at 18 — fresh-faced, hopeful, and blissfully ignorant." —Brittany

"We used to page the numbers ’100101,’ the date that we first kissed, to each other constantly."

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Sarah, 31, and Dave, 29, met near Rochester, New Hampshire. Now they live together in Chicago.

"My husband Dave and I met because he was my younger sister’s first boyfriend and first kiss. Their relationship quickly ended, but I continued to chat with Dave occasionally because we were in the same church youth group together. In 2001, when Dave was 14 and I was 16, our youth group took an overnight trip to a religious conference. During the long drive in the church van, Dave and I started chatting, then flirting, then making out later that night.

Ever since that day, which I remember the date of because we used to page the numbers ’100101’ to each other constantly, we have been together. Two years later, we got married, honeymooned in Mexico so he could drink legally. We just celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary!" —Sarah

"Meeting him was this magical thing where you look at someone, and know that person is special and someone you have to know."

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Julie, 46, and Steven, 47, met in 1984 in Colonia, New Jersey. They got married in 2014, after almost 20 years without contact, and now live together in Los Angeles.

"We met in 1984 at a dance. It was this magical thing where you look at someone, and know that person is special and someone you have to know. We dated all through high school and kind of dated in college. We always had plans that we’d get back together after college. But by 1996, we lost touch completely and went off and had completely different lives.

There was nobody else who was my best friend and who I was also madly in love with like I was with Steven.

Years later, when we found each other again, we were across the country from New Jersey where we’d grown up, and we were both married. I eventually separated from my now ex-husband and spent about a year just trying to cobble my life together. Then I got on Facebook, messaged Steven, and that was it. I think we spent that whole first night messaging. When we got married in 2012, I had the pink taffeta dress I wore to our prom together in 1987 and had it redone and made it into my wedding dress.

We always wonder, Should we have stayed together? I’m so in love with my husband that it makes me so sad to think about what I missed out on in his life. But then we think, We needed to do this. There was a reason why we broke up — we had such a tumultuous relationship back then. For us, it was necessary to grow up and date other people. But there was nobody else who was my best friend and who I was also madly in love with like I was with Steven. Steven really is the best friend I’ve ever had. There’s nothing that compares to this. I get the person I grew up with and the person that knows me best — I have an appreciation for him because I didn’t have him for all that time." —Julie

"We talked on the phone for three hours and spent the next week together."

Courtesy | Kristen Lynn Photographie

Hanna, 30, and Stephen, 30, met in 2002 in New Buffalo, Michigan. They’re now married and live together in Chicago.

"I had been going to boarding school in Connecticut, and something transpired that made me come back home from boarding school and go to a local school at home. That’s where I met Stephen, this little cutie pie from New Buffalo. He was like the sweetest guy ever!

He hadn’t really dated anybody else that I knew of, which is probably good because New Buffalo was a super-small town — I think we graduated with, like, 40 people. We dated our senior year and then we tried to date a little bit throughout college but sort of went our separate ways. Years later, I was planning on moving to California and I told him, and he said he’d love to see me before I went. We talked on the phone for three hours and spent the next week together. I still went to California because my U-Haul was already packed. We dated for six months long-distance, and then I moved back to Chicago, where he was living, and we got engaged a year later.

Marrying a high school sweetheart is great, I think, because it’s like knowing who they really are. That’s the biggest thing." —Hanna

"Michelle always ran in this big pack of girls, so it took me about two weeks to figure out who she actually was."

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Michelle, 49, and Dave, 50, met in 1982 near Rochester, New York. They were married in 1992 and live together in same town where they met in the ’80s.

"When I was in 11th grade, Michelle’s older sister sent me a note when we were in the library that said she knew somebody who liked me. I sent a note back asking who it was, and she said it was her younger sister, Michelle. Michelle always ran in this big pack of girls, so it took me about two weeks to figure out who she actually was. We were at a basketball game one Friday night when I finally met her, and we hit it off. I remember sitting in my parents’ bedroom working up the courage to call her — I think I sat there for about an hour working up the courage to ask her to go to the movies. We went to the movies together and have pretty much been together ever since.

I remember sitting in my parents’ bedroom working up the courage to call her.

I always knew I really, really liked being with her. We had fun together, and our value structure was very much the same. But somebody asked me once if I could see myself sitting on a porch with her when I’m 75 and would we still have something to talk about. Without even batting an eye, I said, ’Yeah, absolutely,’ and he said, ’Then she’s the one for you.’

What’s really awesome about our relationship is just all the history we share. I remember one time, a few years after we had gotten married, Michelle looked at me and said, ’You know, you’re not the same man I married.’ Alarms started going off in my head, and I said, ’What do you mean?’ And she said, ’When we got married, I thought that you loved me, but I didn’t really knowthat you loved me. Today, I know that you love me because you take the time to find out what’s important to me, and you make it important to you too.’ She taught me a great lesson that day. You just learn so much about somebody from being together that long." —Dave

"We really have our own language, nothing is off-limits, everything is out there."

Courtesy | Robert Wojtowicz Photography

Jessica, 27, and Ben, 27, started dating in 2006 in Burlington, Vermont. They were married in 2014 and live together in San Diego.

"We met through an ex-boyfriend of mine — I was dating this guy Ben went to school with, and a group of us went bowling once and we started hanging out. My friend told him via AIM that if he asked me out, I would definitely say yes. So we went to a movie and to the mall to walk around, and he asked me out in the mall parking lot.

It’s fun being married to someone I knew in high school because a lot of our friends and most people in our wedding were people we’ve known since high school. It’s fun to be able to look back and laugh. He just really gets me — he’s seen me through almost every single kind of thing you can go through in life. He’s seen me at my highest high and lowest low. We have really funny memories of drinking together for the first time off the back roads of Vermont. We really have our own language, nothing is off-limits, everything is out there. It definitely makes us a stronger couple." —Jessica

"He said to his friends, ’She’s either going to be my best friend or I’m going to marry her.’"

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Hannah, 24, and Travis, 25, started dating in 2008 in Rowlett, Texas. They were married in 2010 and live together in the same town.

"We met in high school theater — I was the assistant director for a play, and Travis was in the play. We started hanging out a lot, and he said to his friends, ’She’s either going to be my best friend or I’m going to marry her.’ I absolutely felt the same way. It was the kind of thing where you just knew.

He knows literally everything about me. He knew me when I was a kid and he saw me develop into a woman. You think you’re a woman in high school, but you’re not, you’re just a kid. He saw me changing and becoming the person I am today." —Hannah

"I turned him down, because my mother said you should never accept a date that’s only a day away."

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Kim, 50, and David, 51, met in 1982 in Burnsville, Minnesota. They were married in 1987 and live together in Lakeville, Minnesota.

"We met at church, we went to the same church but different high schools. David just showed up in my driveway one day, which was exciting and unsettling. My family had a pool table in the basement and we played a game of pool, and he said, ’If I win, you have to go out with me. I said OK and let him win, and he invited me to go out with him the very next day. I turned him down, because my mother said you should never accept a date that’s only a day away, and said I could go out Saturday night instead. We went out Saturday night for dinner and a movie — I had a turkey sandwich and he was wearing a burgundy V-neck sweater and Lee jeans.

Prom was our fourth date, and I remember he brought flowers for my mother because she had made my dress. Back then, your dresses went down to your wrists and up to your neck. We continued to date through my junior and senior year of high school while he was at college, and he came back both years for my junior and senior proms.

We got married my senior year of college. I think I realized I’d marry him even in high school — I was young and romantic, and thought he was perfect in every way. Marrying him is the single greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. My life would not have been the same without my marriage." —Kim

"Since we have known each other for so long, being best friends is all we really know how to be anymore."

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Kayleigh, 22, and David, 22, met when they were 4 years old in Kingwood, Texas. They were married in 2014 and live together in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

"We grew up in the same church and met in Sunday school when we were 4. We were really good friends our whole lives but dated other people through most of high school. We went to prom in the same group but with different dates. We started dating shortly after that.

Marrying someone I knew growing up absolutely set us up for success in our marriage. We’ve found that, for us, marriage isn’t about constant cuddles and romantic gestures until you die, although we love that part of it. What’s shown to be really important is figuring out how to be the best partner and friend that the other person needs. Being there at the end of a bad day and listening to the other vent, running to get cold medicine when the other is sick, speaking life into each other’s insecurities and failures. Since we have known each other for so long, being best friends is all we really know how to be anymore. That makes all the other stuff way easier." —David

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