The Story
Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairytale.
By Greg Tepper
In a story worth telling, the key figures involved usually disagree on the details. That’s how you know that Julie and Michael’s tale is worth your time.
That’s not to say that everything is a matter of dispute. The pair, after seemingly orbiting around one another for the better part of a year, met in earnest at a wedding in 2017 — both agree to this fact, and the fact that Julie was not invited to the wedding. The next day, the pair got to know one another on a group trip to the Atlanta United soccer match, which both remember more for one another and a futile search for a cheeseburger than the on-field action.
And so it began for Michael and Julie, who courted one another over raucous sports atmospheres and quiet moments alone. He fell for her “unmistakable” laugh; she fell for his attentiveness and sense of humor. And it was more little moments than big gestures — a sly joke on the couch or dinner left in the fridge after a long week — that made both realize that this was, in fact, it.
But there is the matter of who said those three magic words to the other first, and it’s a topic of fierce debate. Michael contends that Julie was the first to say “I love you”; Julie swears it was the other way around, citing a late-night phone call where it may have slipped. It’s impossible to know for sure, but regardless of the words, the feelings were certainly mutual.
That all led to Christmas in downtown Atlanta, a special place for the couple — the site of many of their warmest memories. On the balcony of a hotel room alit with the illuminated Atlanta skyline, Michael dropped to a knee and asked Julie for her hand.
We’ll probably never know for sure who said “I love you” first, an argument sure to come up again over cocktails. But regardless, both Julie and Michael are saying it now, and will for many, many years to come.
Greg Tepper is a close friend of the bride’s and the managing editor of Dave Campbell’s Texas Football - the Southwest’s leading football source since 1960. He also co-hosts “Fox Football Friday Powered by DCTF” and “High School Scoreboard Live” on Fox Sports Southwest, for which he won Lone Star EMMY awards in 2018 and 2019.