Now that we’re closing in on the one-year anniversary of our engagement (and my wedding planning is somewhat paused) I’ve decided to take an ole strolleroo down memory lane. It’s no Black Heels and Tractor Wheels, but I want to share the story of how the Him and the Me became the Us.

So we’ll start at the beginning: Once upon a dorm room…

I was chatting with my little baby cousin yesterday about studying for her first round of finals at the University of Illinois. Oh how it brought back the memories. I loved my freshman year of college – I loved the dorm I had been assigned to and made some amazing friends. It made me quite nostalgic … that was, of course, when I met The Boy Who Would Someday Become The Fiance.

I lived on an all girls floor of a co-ed dorm. A friend of mine from high school lived upstairs, so as soon as the boys moved in (I was there a week early for formal sorority recruitment) I went to the Second Floor. My HS friend and the half dozen guys who lived in the rooms around him soon became known as the Second Floor Boys … The Fiance included. There were three other pledges in my house in the same hall, and we all power-bonded.

The Boy Who Would Someday Become The Fiance was the prankster of the group. Early in the fall semester, he showed up at the door of my dorm room with a master plan to steal my roommate’s mattress. I wish I could say that I tried to stop him. At the time I thought he had a crush on her. Ohhhh I was wrong.

(taken right after finals, just about 8 years ago, when we were “just friends.”)

Freshman year, we all got so slap-happy studying for finals that it dissolved into an all-dorm midnight game of sardines. I ended up hiding in The Fiance’s laundry basket. He was in his closet too. I remember giggling like idiots for about 20 minutes. I survived that finals week on Kitkat Bites and Diet Coke, if I remember right.

So that’s how we met. It was a series of meetings – over illicitly purchased margaritas, over res hall fire drills, over insanely large stacks of notecards, over Political Science 101, over trying to fit 10 freshmen in the back of a blue Mustang … I guess that’s what happens when you start out as friends. There wasn’t ever any big moment. We clicked immediately, that’s for sure, but neither of us had any idea that it would ever be more than that.

I tell my little baby cousin now to enjoy her freshman year. It’s a unique experience, and a lot of fun. I love hearing her stories – it sounds like she is making the same kind of friends I found, which means she is a very lucky girl.

Besides, you never know when the funny boy upstairs with the sweet smile and an affinity for pranks will turn out to be the man you’ll spend your life with.

So how did you meet your fiance?