Please enjoy the sweet story of Lauren and John, winners of our LoveStory Contest. We were so honored to capture their untouchable love for one another just a few days ago...
Lauren and John
When I was four years old, my family moved from Ooltewah to Signal Mountain. I anticipated that I would have to go to a new school and make new friends. However, I was not expecting to find my best friend so quickly. A few days after we moved in, the neighbors came to greet us. I was pleased to find out that there were two other children on our street named John and David. Even though John was three years older than me we immediately became friends.
We were always outside building forts and being adventuresome on the mountain. We also frequently played "house" on a large boulder on our street. John and I were the "parents" of my little sister. Since his mother was a stay at home mom he insisted that that is how our "family" was going to be. So he made me stay home on the rock to sweep and take care of my little sister while he rode his bicycle down the street on his commute to "work". We played like this for years.
Once I realized that I really liked John, I began to become very shy around him. So every time I wanted to play, I would convince my sister (who is three years younger than me) to call his house to ask if he wanted to "play". Occasionally this took a little bit more than convincing, and she required some compensation, such as my allowance, to call him. After all of the endless days and nights of playing together as young children, I knew we had something very special between the two of us. John says that it took him longer to accept that he liked me more than a friend. He was concerned about what his friends would think of him liking a girl three years younger than him. It took until I turned 16 for him to finally accept the fact that we should take our friendship to the next level. It was then that we became boyfriend and girlfriend and that is how it has been to this day.
When I talk to other couples, everyone always says that they have had to work through the ups and downs with their partner, but I have to say that we have always been "up". I attribute this to the fact that we have built our relationship on an incredible friendship that we have had for practically our entire lives. We are always doing something exciting whether it is traveling or picking up new hobbies together. We especially love the outdoors. I believe this comes from the beginning of our friendship when we were enjoying nature together as young children.
Our relationship has blossomed over the past 5 ½ years and we recently became engaged. John took me back to where our friendship first started to ask me to marry him. It was on top of that boulder where we used to play house that I agreed to start our real family 18 years later. My mom has always told me to marry my best friend and I am lucky to be able to say that I will. We are so excited to start a new chapter of our lives together in May.
-written by Lauren
