Each week, Swoon features a couple that's deserving of being true #RelationshipGoals.
Couple:
Kylee and Ethan
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How long have you been together?
We have been together for three years! We actually started dating on April 4th, 2015.. so a little over three. We plan on making our wedding date the same day we started dating—April 4th, 2020!
How did you meet?
To be completely honest, how we met was kind of strange. I had just been dumped and was coming out of a somewhat strange sexual relationship with someone. I was asleep in my friend's bed later that night upset, and being the strange person she is, she snapped a picture of me sleeping to all the guys in her phone.
Ethan responded and said "She's cute..." and while I slept, my friend sent my number and I woke up to him explaining himself on why he had my number. We arranged a time to meet, and we just hit it off.
The first night we met we just stayed in his bed and watched a movie. We didn't do anything at all. We just talked until 4 a.m. which was something so different than the last guy I was with. It was a really good feeling. And those kinds of feelings didn't stop or slow down for the course of our relationship.
How did Ethan propose?
Ethan proposed while my whole family celebrated my brother's 21st birthday. He had asked my brother if while they were singing to him, if he could say a few words after which ended with me as his fiancé of course. He got down on one need and said there would be no better place to do this than in front of my friends and family, which couldn't be more accurate. There is no other way he could have proposed to me that would have been better than that. My family is everything to me and to be honest, to say this all in front of my huge extended family took some guts. I give him credit. None of my other cousins had done this before, so I felt honored for both my gram's to get to experience it with me.
What is the cutest thing about you two?
I would say the cutest thing about us is what we find fun! We spend so much time looking for houses to flip. He renovates and I design. It's kind of our thing, and after three years, it's still a dream of ours. We are actually looking at the next place we can flip. That will be house number three for us, so it's exciting to think we've actually come far in this. Three years for three houses. I'd say that's pretty neat and a big accomplishment for us considering it's not our only priority for us.
What are your favorite things about each other?
My favorite physical trait about him is his smile. He has always been self-conscious about it, but every time I see him smile I know I'm doing something right. He has spent his whole life trying to get other people to smile, so the fact I'm able to so often really means something to me. His favorite personality trait of mine is his drive. It doesn't matter what this guy puts his mind to because he does it. It doesn't matter if it takes him forever to grasp, he will spend the rest of his life seeing to it that the task at hand is done. I really admire that about him. I wish I could be like that.
His favorite physical trait about me is also my smile. One of the first things he said to me when we started dating was that he has never seen a smile more beautiful. I spend a lot of my life smiling, and getting compliments on it is still one of my favorite things. His favorite personality trait about me would be my creativity. He said he thinks it's amazing how I'm able to see the beauty of a room before I've worked my magic with it. I'll never forget sitting with him one day after a project I had done, and he looked at me and said, "My favorite thing about you is your creativity, it just amazes me."
What are your favorite memories together?
My favorite memory was right before I started school, originally I was going to be moving away, so he planned this whole trip for us. He took me to another state, to a bed and breakfast, where we got to play with baby tigers, take a bath in this beautiful, antique attic, then go zip-lining in caves underground. It was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. He spent money he didn't have, and I got to cross things off my bucket list I thought I'd never cross off. I realized moving away to school could cost me something special, so I moved in with him instead, and here we are, almost three years later—engaged. Best decision I've ever made.
He has managed to surprise me with romantic things throughout the course of our relationship. Just a little after our trip, we were working on redoing our kitchen. He saved floorboards from the kitchen floor and made me a chest where I keep a lot of my most treasured things in. I may not always get to see our first home, but I get part of it with me where ever I go.
Later on for his birthday, I made a video of all of our memories from the past year. They were all times he never knew I was taping. So he got to watch a year's worth of my love for him on the day he was born, and the look on his face made every sneaky moment of taping worth it.
What advice do you have for people who want a loving relationship in 2018?
Learn to let the little things go. Everyone has a past, but the more time you spend arguing about it, the less chance you'll have at a future with them.
No time will ever be the right time, so say what you feel when you feel it and don't hold back when trying to communicate with your partner—life's too short for that shit.
Never stop doing the little things. Last Monday Ethan came in with flowers and I said, "What are those for?"
He looked at me, smiled, and said, "It's Monday..."
We aren't perfect and I know we never will be, but what we do have is one and a million, so I'll take that any day.
