Like many great modern love stories, ours began with a swipe on Tinder.

You might say it wasn’t exactly love at first sight. We had a first date planned for one of Kendrick’s Nashville overnights, but before we could even make it there, Josh did a little disappearing act. Kendrick, needing proof of life, and confirmation that this Tinder match was, in fact, a real human being, finally issued a simple ultimatum: “FaceTime me!”

That call changed everything.

What started as a quick call turned into hours of conversation, followed by daily talks leading up to our first date. Then, on the night of the date, Josh was late. Naturally, Kendrick assumed the ghosting had returned.

It hadn’t.

Josh eventually arrived, with flowers and a thoughtfully planned date, and somewhere between the laughter and conversation, we both knew there was something different about this.

After that, we were pretty much inseparable.

Our families quickly became part of the story, too. Kendrick’s sister Ebony conducted her own version of a background check by strategically posting things on Facebook that only Josh could see. Thankfully, he passed. Meanwhile, before Kendrick had even met the Holliday family, they started adding him on Facebook. Maybe Heather found him first. Maybe it was Pete. Either way, Kendrick remembers thinking, ‘Why are all these people already adding me?!’

What neither of us fully understood then was that our families weren’t simply welcoming the person we were dating. They were already making room for each of us. Before long, his family became mine, and mine became his.

A photo from our first date.

Not long after, Kendrick moved to Nashville, officially for “seniority.” We’ll continue to let him use that excuse. The truth was that being closer to Josh had become more important than pretending this was still casual.

When Josh’s lease ended, we made the completely rational decision every relatively new couple makes: we moved in together.

We began building a life in all the little ways that eventually become the big ways. Sharing routines, making plans, creating traditions, learning each other’s quirks, and figuring out how two very different people could make one life fit together.

Then Josh accepted a job back home in Michigan, and our next adventure began. Kendrick somehow managed to have three different addresses within a year, but by then we had learned something important: home wasn’t Nashville, Michigan, an apartment, or any particular address.

Home had become each other.

And we are, without question, different.

Josh is loud. Very loud. He has never met a stranger and could probably make a new best friend while waiting in line at the grocery store. Kendrick brings a little more restraint to the operation. Somehow, it works. We balance each other, challenge each other, make each other laugh, occasionally drive each other completely crazy, and most importantly, keep choosing each other. 

Along the way, we’ve traveled the world, gotten lost in the woods, survived road trips despite Kendrick’s deep and unwavering hatred of them, and became very proud dog dads to Oliver. We’ve built a home and a life filled with traditions, adventures, ordinary days, hard moments, big celebrations, and more laughter than we could ever count.