Jill & Matt met in Owensboro, Kentucky, and have been married since 2017. Their relationship started on a whim and ended in lasting love.
THEIR LOVE STORY:
Who would have figured I would fall in love with a man I Googled?
While teaching back in 2015, I was tasked with coaching our middle school dance team. One day, Macey, my 11-year-old dance student, approached me with a big smile. She told me that I should date her “friend.” I internally rolled my eyes because as one of the youngest teachers in my school, the students were always trying to set me up with their uncle, dad, you name it. But this little girl opened her phone and starting Googling.
“See, he’s a golfer!” (Insert an internal eye roll.) I knew nothing about golf beyond Tiger Woods. She was so tickled to show me her family friend’s picture, so I looked at the search. Ok, I did think he was incredibly handsome, but what would a professional golfer want with a small town teacher? So, I responded the only way I could think of with a simple, “Oh, he’s cute! Where has he been my whole life?” This comment sent her home telling her mom that her dance coach and golf friend needed to be together because Ms. Erwin was “single and ready to mingle.”
A few days later, her mother texted me an invitation to a family-friendly New Year’s Eve party they always host at a local high school. I ignored the message until she texted me again asking if I would come. Thinking I would disappoint Macey, I agreed to go and rallied one of my friends to join me.
When I walked in the school, I heard a gaggle of kids screaming, “She’s here, Matt! She’s here.” And the rest, well, the rest is my current life as a wife and mom of two girls. Our love is unique because we came together with little in common, yet we have spent the past 5 years building a life we love. I guess if I hadn’t left my phone number on a paper plate at the end of the night or listened to an adolescent with a serious rom-com dream, I wouldn’t be happily married to my favorite golfer (and p.s.- I know more about golf now than just Tiger Woods).