My friend Kristalyn has always been a big supporter of my work, and when she found our that her mom Kristi was engaged, she introduced us right away! Kristi and her fiancé Ashley wanted a change of scenery from their native Arkansas so they suggested to come to Tulsa to take their engagement photos.
They have an amazing star crossed lovers story that I was dying to hear all about once she had briefly mentioned it. So many plot twists and turns that it would be too much to type it all out in a narrative, so I'll make it easier and start it off with some bulletin points first haha.
Kristi knew of his family already for 20+ years, but never knew he existed!
She has been friends with his sister for the longest time, and her kids (his niece & nephew) went all through school with Kristi's own kids.
Kristi even at one point bought her house from his uncle.
There were 2 different times that Ashley had lived just 2-3 houses away from Kristi's mom's house, with the first time being in the same neighborhood as Kristi. And yet, they still never crossed paths!
Kristi had also been friends with his best friend Darin for a very long time, but he too had never mentioned anything about Ashley to Kristi.
Phew! Now onto the rest of the story! It was finally 3 years ago from this writing that they FINALLY met. It was at a house party of a mutual friend. The University of Arkansas Razorbacks were playing a football game at home, and according to Kristi's words...
"I had gotten to the party late because I had been out with some girlfriends. I sat down on the floor in front of Ashley to finish watching the game. After the game was over, I was giving Darin shit for running his mouth. I guess that's what hooked Ashley, that I knew how to push Darin's buttons lol. Fast forward several months later, I filed for divorce... (from her then husband)"
"Few more months after that is when I got a text from Ashley, saying we needed to go on a bike ride. I told him I was all about that stranger danger, and that I would be doing a background check on him."
"I saw that he and one of my cousins were mutual friends on Facebook, so I went to my cousin and asked about him. The cousin gave me the green light and told me he was a great guy! Meanwhile, Ashley was doing the same thing, by reaching out to another one of their mutual friends, Rob. Rob had used to live with Ashley's family all throughout high school, and unbeknownst to Ashley, I even used to babysit Rob when I was young. AGAIN, all this time, we never met!!"
"I guess it's just never been the right timing for us... until now. We've both been burned before in past relationships and both have been hesitant. But now... we are both ready to go for it!"
