How it all began…
The Beginning.
Jake and Madison first met in 8th grade when they were 14 years old. Jake had gone to see Madison as Dorothy in a school production of the Wizard of Oz…
“To this day I still remember exactly where I was sitting in the theatre and exactly what she looked like. I was in the back right side of the house and she was down stage left in a spotlight, with her hair in braids singing the mostly beautiful version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
After the show, Jake was introduced to her and they quickly became friends. That friendship grew tremendously over the next few years through their love for the performing arts.
The later years.
Madison would go on to attend UCF while Jake went to Rollins College to complete their bachelors degrees. After graduating college, Madison and Jake found themselves working with each other at an arts organization in Downtown Orlando.
“I started working as a development intern at CFCArts and as soon as I heard they had a theatre program I knew I had to get Jake involved.”
By this point, they were inseparable. The best of friends. They worked together, hung out together, did shows together, but through everyone teasing them that they should be together, it didn’t click until much later…
The epiphany.
So one night, Jake and Madison were about to leave the theatre after a long night of rehearsal and Jake decided it was time for him to shoot his shot! He asked if she had ever thought about the two of them together. She nervously laughed and scanned his face to see if he was serious or not. Sure enough, he was dead serious. From there, the two of them took their newfound romantic relationship slowly, making sure that this was the direction they wanted this lifelong friendship to go in. But for Jake, after that moment, there was never a doubt in his mind.
“It’s one of those silly things that people say about love, that you don’t know what it feels like until it happens to you for real. It was like nothing I had experienced with anyone before. This was my best friend. The only person I would want to spend every day with. To explore with. Laugh with. Love with. It was like God and the universe slapped me over the head with this gift.”
The Honeymoon Phase.
It was about a month into dating that Jake told Madison that he loved her. They had said they loved each other before but this was a different kind of love all together. This was deep love. Jake didn’t mean for the words to come out when they did. They just jumped out of his body, like he had to say it at that moment right then or else. The look of surprise on Madison’s face was the same look that was on his.
The Proposal.
After two years of dating each other, Jake decided to act on something he had been wanting to do for 730 days, ask Madison to marry him. He enlisted the help of his younger sister, Chrissy, to create an elaborate plan for the proposal. The idea was to trick Madison into thinking she was going to be a model for a wedding photoshoot. As Madison was distracted by the beautiful pictures, Jake would sneak into the shoot and surprise her with the ring, capturing the whole moment. There was a second surprise though. Unbeknownst to Madison, Chrissy was secretly live streaming the entire proposal to a room full of family and friends who got to watch the entire moment unfold.
“I was insanely nervous. I was a wreck the entire week leading up to the proposal thinking about what I should say, what she would say, if the whole double surprise would work or not. Madison is my best friend so my jitters were thinly veiled around her. I’m not sure if she knew what was going to happen or not, but I like to think that she was genuinely surprised by the whole thing. I remember one night when she was pressing me about why I was acting so weird I just told her straight up, please don’t ask me any questions because I cant lie to you and I cant tell you what’s happening so just trust me, okay? I cant believe it worked.”
-Jake