We met in March 2017 and were married on May 11, 2018. Max was 25 & I was 24.
Love wasn’t going to keep us on standby. We knew we wanted to get married and delaying it didn’t make any sense. This path doesn’t work for everyone but we regularly say, we got lucky because we didn’t actually know each other the way many couples do when they get engaged. All we knew was, we were best friends, truly, we had unconditional love, and peace was at the center of everything.
In our time together we have a wedding photography business, I graduated college, worked alongside our family’s business during 2020, bought a house sight unseen, moved out of state from our families to a new city, and we’re just getting started!
The odds are usually stacked against us…
“After 23 offers we were ready to buy almost any house”
After a whirlwind romance and job changes, we had to move in with family right after the wedding. We were discouraged but got to work and started saving so we could move out. Little did we know it would take 3.5 years, a pandemic, and being willing to move out of state.
When the time came to shop for homes it was December 2019 and I’m sure you can already see where this is going… Like many other couples, families, or first-time home buyers it was a difficult season on top of a difficult year. 18 months went by while we shopped almost every weekend and eventually after offer number 23, we stopped. We got the text from our realtor, sellers had gone with a cash offer- significantly over asking — again.
“Something is wrong… I think we’re doing something wrong” I told Max after offer number 23. Thinking through it more, I told him, “We need to change how we’re praying. I don’t think we’re asking God the right questions. Maybe, we’re not supposed to be here?”
Max had started a new job in January of 2021 and when he accepted it we knew they had offices in other states, one of them being Dallas, TX. Before accepting the position we talked about if we would personally be ok with relocating if they asked. They didn’t ask us to relocate but after number 23… we wondered if we should. The next day Max’s work asked him if he’d fly out to the Dallas office for a shoot on Monday. He said yes, and when he got his feet on the ground he knew that’s what we were supposed to do next. One phone call to his boss later and they green-lit us for the relocation.
That was the end of July 2021. Days before we were waiting to get the house we really wanted in Phoenix and now we were moving out of state. In August we were matched with a realtor in Texas and four weeks later we put in our 24th offer on a home but this time in Texas. The selling realtor read our offer letter and had compassion on us.
She wrote us back and said, “I want you guys to have a win! I can’t give you this house but I have another in the same neighborhood. If you like it, it’s yours!”
Our realtor toured the home, sent us the images, and it had elements in the home we had wanted but given up on after the first few offers. 30 days later, at the end of September, we were homeowners and we still hadn’t even stepped foot on the property.
We’ve lived here for almost two years now and it genuinely feels like home. It’s hard to imagine our lives anywhere else.