Micah Miller, 37, of Huntsville, AR, had agreed to spend the day at Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO with his cousin and her out-of-state friends in December of 2019. One of those friends caught his eye, and the rest, as they say, is history.
April Friesen, 26, of Shipshewana, IN was a first-year nursing student on Christmas vacation. She was visiting her friend, Miller’s cousin, and thoroughly enjoyed the day. As Friesen says now, “I was blissfully oblivious of any interest on his part and barely talked to him. I went home and forgot about him.”
Six months after the one-day meeting, Friesen received a hand-written letter and a bag of whole bean coffee in the mail. The couple had had no contact of any kind between the December meeting and this letter. It came as a huge surprise to Friesen who says, “It was so out of the blue I thought at first it was some elaborate joke!” Five and a half weeks later, Miller flew out for their first date.
The two have maintained their relationship between visits with the aid of modern technology. Miller says, “We started out with texting and phone calls. Then we switched to WhatsApp which included voice messages. Then we progressed to video calls, and after that, we didn’t want to go back to regular phone calls unless we had to.” This heavy use of technology may come as a surprise to some, as both Friesen and Miller are members of a traditional Amish/Mennonite religious culture. When asked what their record video call length was, Miller smirked and said, “Don’t ask.”
The couple traveled to the Dominican Republic in April, while Friesen was on spring break from college. While there, they got engaged next to the Caribbean. Friesen said, “It was dreamy, and I lost my bet.” When asked what she meant by this, Friesen explained that all her family and friends were sure before she left on the trip, that she would return engaged. Friesen, on the contrary, was absolutely positive that Miller would not propose. So sure, she bet her cousin $50 she wouldn’t come back a fiancée. The couple is planning a fall wedding this October. Their six-month engagement has been busy with work, travel, family events, and for Friesen–graduating with her associate degree in nursing and passing her RN boards.
The couple has remained long-distance throughout the duration of their relationship. During the earlier part of 2021 and the end of 2020, the couple benefited from cheap airfare. Unfortunately, this spring as more COVID restrictions lifted and travel increased, prices spiked, and Miller has been doing a lot more driving. As the wedding day approaches, Friesen admits “it’s getting a lot harder to say goodbye the closer we get to our wedding day. We’re tired of saying good bye.” (Miller added snarkily, “And I’m getting tired of driving.”)
Both Friesen and Miller strongly expressed their belief that maintaining (and in their case building) a strong relationship even while long-distance is possible. In fact, they feel it has been good for their relationship. As Friesen said, “We feel like it has actually made us more intentional about our relationship, and even made it progress faster than it may have otherwise. Our primary method of relating because we’re long-distance is by talking. We couldn’t just hang out all the time and never really talk about anything important.”
In reflecting over their initial meeting back in 2019, Miller says, “I was living my best life. I had no plans of marriage, and I definitely wasn’t looking!” Friesen expressed similar sentiments, “I was halfway through my three years of college. I had just finished a stressful semester of nursing school that day we met back in December. I had another year and a half before graduation. I planned on getting a hospital job after that and then pursuing my bachelor’s degree while working. I had my life planned out and a relationship wasn’t on my radar at the moment. I had a plan, goals, and purpose. I was in a good place in life.” Miller interjected, “I guess the moral of the story is, ‘never say never,’ because here we are, 54 days away from our wedding!” Here Friesen laughed and said, “Yes, before you ask, we do have a countdown!”