Where shall I start? The story of meeting Marcus starts many years before we actually met, but for the sake of time, I’ll start on September 15, 2019. I was attending an awards ceremony, sponsored by Shoe Me Shoes Foundation. My dear friend, India was being recognized for her amazing community work along with two other honorees, one of which was Marcus. The Devo Divas (Kendra, Brande, Chantell, and I) were there in support of India’s great accomplishment. Each honoree had a chance to stand up and give a speech and when it became Marcus’ turn…I found myself captured by him and thought to myself “Hmmm, he’s kinda cute!” and immediately and I mean immediately, my friend Chantell said playfully, “Hey would you like to get to know the other honoree?” For a second, I thought that my inside thought had been spoken out loud she responded so timely. Well of course, I said, “Yes actually, I do!” She said she knew Marcus and would reach out to him after the ceremony to make the connection. I didn’t want to leave things up to chance, so when I got home, I decided to drop into his DM, professionally of course, so I shot him a message on LinkedIn celebrating and encouraging him, you know…just to be sure I was seen (see message above). He said thank you and things went quiet for a few days. Then, FINALLY I got a friend request from him on Facebook and truthfully the rest has been history.

We talked on messenger for about a week, then exchanged numbers and shared many texts back and forth getting to know one another and after a few weeks, we went on our first date, October 19^th 2019 (Little did I know that 3 years later on this same weekend, this man would be asking me to be his wife!). Now, Marcus drilled me on that first date. I felt like I was on an interview, like he literally asked me about my degrees and awards and my 5 year plan, lol…which I later came to really adore because it showed me how intentional he was in knowing who I was and the standard he had for the kind of woman he wanted in his life. After that first date, he took me out 10 times in 2 weeks…needless to say he was smitten!!! And I was too! I had never met a man like Marcus, one that was so successful, yet so down to earth, funny, nurturing and I always felt so comfortable around him. Also, we had sooo many things in common! Our relationship took off and after just 3 months from our first date, we were planning our first trip to Canada, where we spent my birthday weekend, January 31, 2020. Things were going well, then March 2020 hit…the pandemic. Our worlds literally became each other and our parents (and mine live in AR, so he was literally my whole world). Marcus and I were very conservative during the pandemic and spent all of our time with just each other. During this time, we became each other’s rock. We weathered riots, political unrest, pandemics, death of love ones, job changes and sheer fear and panic about what was going on in our world. We leaned into each other and with each thing our love grew deeper and deeper. Marcus gives me the kind of safety in love that I have always desired and I cannot wait to be his wife! I thank God (and my friends India and Chantell) for leading me to a future far more beautiful than I had ever even dreamed, with Marcus D. Gladdis.