One of my favorite parts of photographing couples is hearing their stories. Each one is so special and unique to the couple who shares it. While I am privileged to hear so many different stories, my couples never hear mine. So I thought maybe I should change that. Today on the blog, I’m starting a series on “How I Met My Husband.“

In case you need to get all caught up, here are the previous installments of our story.

The Story of Us| Part One

The Story of Us| Part Two

Tierney’s Perspective

Over the next couple weeks, I couldn’t get Christopher out of my brain. I was always a very subtle girl, and pretty old school too. I never was never one to throw myself at guys, but ,to subtly let Christopher know I was interested, I liked a couple of his Facebook photo from the missions trip in Utah. I laugh at myself now, ya’ll. The week following their missions trip, we went on our family vacation to Lake Lure and my sister and brother-in-law came along. I was determined to tell my sister that I was interested in Christopher. I knew I would need her help if I was going to have a shot at this. The week went on, and I still hadn’t mentioned anything. Every time we were alone, I’d get too nervous and talk myself out of telling her. Saturday came, and we were packing up to head home. We made a stop for breakfast. I kept telling myself, “You have to tell her, you idiot!” So as we were running to the restroom before leaving the restaurant and parting ways I brought up Christopher. I barely got his name out before she blurted “YOU LIKE HIM!!! I KNEW IT! You kept giggling at him on the van ride to Raleigh!”

I still hadn’t found a job yet, so we decided I would come see her in August right around my birthday. The first or second night I got in, she invited Christopher over for dinner. He had no clue I was going to be there, but I didn’t find that out until later. That made me a bit nervous. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was wearing my red skinny pants, a black t-shirt, and my hair was scrunched. Dinner went very well! We all stayed up and talked for awhile. Cassie and Adam eventually went to bed, and Christopher and I really hit it off! We stayed up until midnight talking even though he had work the next day. A couple days later, it was my 22nd birthday! Woohoo! Christopher sent me a Facebook message and asked me if he could take me out. I happily obliged! We went to Zapata’s and ate Mexican food. He also asked me for my phone number. For most of the duration of my trip, he was going to be in Charleston, SC for a work trip. But we text and talked nearly every evening while he was gone.

Soon after returning home, I received a call from a school in Goldsboro, NC. They had an opening come up for a teaching position. So Labor Day Week end, I moved into an apartment with a girl I went to college with in that area, and started my new job on Tuesday. Christopher came to visit me that weekend, and he made things “official”. I became his girlfriend. Time went by very fast that year! I literally lived for Fridays when Christopher and I could see each other again. We lived two and a half hours apart, but we tried to see each other every weekend if we could. We had an amazing thing going! We would travel to different places together, we drank lots of coffee, and we went to lots of antique stores together!

The long distance relationship did grow old quite quickly though. Especially in January when I totaled my car driving home from seeing Christopher. It took me almost two months to get another one, and we had the quite the stretch of not being able to see each other through that.

During that spring, I realized that I loved Christopher- really loved him, but I didn’t want to say it first. So I waited. I remember one weekend when the long distance relationship was just wearing me down. Christopher had just dropped me off at my apartment. I remember sitting in the middle of my living room crying to myself, “I love him. I’m so sick of long distance!” A few minutes later, I heard a knock on the door. I looked through the peephole and saw Christoper standing.

“What are you doing here?” I threw open the door, so confused.

Christopher looked me in the eye and said, “Tierney, I love you.”

I was elated. It was such a romantic moment! He had driven a little ways down the road, and turned around just to tell me that he loved me.  It was the sweetest!

Christoper’s Perspective

I said nothing changed after I sent that friend request to Tierney on Facebook, and technically nothing did…immediately, but it was the start of something.

Around three months after graduating college, Cassie and Adam invited me over for dinner one evening. Before I headed over there that day, I specifically remember helping my friend Caleb put down an electric fence for his dog. I remember this because it was the first time in my life I ever got poison ivy (that junk sucks). While helping Caleb I was telling him about how I had semi-reconnected with Tierney on social media and asked for his advice on whether or not to pursue her again. I vaguely remember him giving me some advice that went something like, “If it’s meant to be it will happen, just be yourself.”

I headed over to the Hinson’s house and when I knocked on the door, to my surprise Tierney answered the door. I instantly knew this was a set up. Thinking back to the first time we were set up in high school, I was determined to just have fun that evening and not put any stock in what if scenarios. The evening ended up going well. The Saturday after that evening, I invited Tierney out for her birthday and then exchanged numbers. Before I knew it we were dating.

After we exchanged numbers we talked and texted a lot over the next few weeks. Tierney started a teaching job in Goldsboro, NC. The first weekend of September 2013, I went up there to visit. We officially started dating September 8, 2013, funny how one can remember these dates.  In the beginning, the tough part of our relationship was long distance. We were about 2 and a half hours away and every weekend I visited we would drive to her parent’s house, which was another 2 hours of driving. If you’re doing the math that was 9 hours of driving almost every other weekend.

But we were in love and would do anything to see each other. Those early days, weeks, and months go by so fast and it is hard to believe it has been almost 5 years since then. Since we started dating in the fall, this time of year has become a special part of our lives. We love going to the same places today that we went to back when we first started dating. One special place is Mebane, NC. We went to a lot of coffee shops and antique stores there, love that town. Throughout that first year we went to Mebane, Newbern, Charleston, Greenville, and Myrtle Beach to name a few. We always loved traveling together and even today when we have a long drive ahead of us I get excited to spend that time with Tierney.

In the late Spring of 2014, God put together a special opportunity for Tierney to be able to move down to South Carolina. It was around the end of May when she finally moved down and with that it brought the end of our “long distance” relationship”, which I was happy about.

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