Gideon looked back at me and I saw that same youthful face that I fell in love with at this very same festival 5 years ago. We were so young, just high-schoolers fumbling around and bumping into romance. I never thought that I would be here with him so many years later and still feel my stomach tighten when he looked at me.

Our relationship was like a fairytale.

From our very first date, we fell in love and have been falling ever since. Just being with him made me content.

Everyone speaks about happiness, and of course there is happiness with Gideon too. But I’m content. I feel comfortable and whole. Something that I didn’t feel with anyone else. Not my sisters, not even Mom and Dad. I don’t feel anxious about presenting my best self, because we just are the best versions of ourselves together. I don’t have to work at it, it just happens when we’re together.

Soon those early dates piled up and before we knew it, we weren’t just casually dating but we were truly apart of each other’s lives. It happened subtly and without any fanfare. Dates turned into commitment. Commitment turned into trust. Trust turned into deep and lasting affection.

And it all happened slowly and steadily with no one noticing.

We didn’t realize do the traditional proposal thing. He didn’t get down on one knee and surprise me. That’s not who we are. We talked about marriage. We talked about what we wanted our future together to be. Neither of us envisioned a future without the other.

It was just impossible to think of a life without him, he had become my foundation on which the rest of my life would be built.

Mom and Dad of course were thrilled. They had always liked Gideon, and they knew that our commitment to each other was deep and true.

Without the selfish display that most weddings are. With just our family and friends we decided to make legal what had been there all along.

Everyone says that marriage is a huge commitment that is life-altering. But besides getting used to calling him my ‘husband’ nothing has changed between us. We’re still that couple that fell in love on a cute Love Day date.

He still looks at me the same way he did when we first met.

And I still love him as fiercely as when we had our first kiss.

And there is just no other person I want to live my life with.