After 12 Years Apart, 2 Best Friends from Preschool Reunite and Fall in Love
We often hear stories about couples who were high school sweethearts finding one another after years apart. But preschool sweethearts? That’s on a whole new level of sweet.
After going their separate ways when they were 5 years old, Natalie Crowe and Austin Tatman reconnected in high school.
Their story is quite something. They first connected by chance as preschoolers at the age of 2. Both of them lived in Florida at the time and soon became inseparable.
“We just automatically became best friends and our parents realized it,” Natalie shared with People. “…we were constantly together.”
Though Natalie and Austin don’t recall every detail of those years, their parents were able to fill in the blanks and keep those moments alive.
During those early years, Natalie’s parents got divorced. When she was 5, she moved with her mom and two siblings to Connecticut.
“I remember the very last day that I saw him,” she told People. “Not knowing that I wouldn’t see him for over a decade.”
Twelve years passed before Natalie and her best childhood friend had a chance to reconnect.
At the age of 17, Natalie came across her mom’s old address book. Austin’s name seemed to stick out to her from the filled pages.
“I still have no idea to this day why, ” she explained. “I went to his name out of all the names that were in there.”
Thanks to social media, Natalie was able to track down her old pal and before they knew it, she and Austin had plans to meet up for dinner when she visited her dad in Florida just weeks later.
The day that marked the beginning of a rekindled friendship and new romance was born on July 31, 2012. “Ever since that time, we’ve been together,” Natalie said. “It was like the second I saw him, it was a friendship that had come back to life instantly.”
Once they had their first date alone, sparks really began to fly. “We rekindled the friendship on the first day of reuniting, and then being alone, it was like, ‘Okay, whatever time that may be, I’m gonna marry you.”‘
And so they did. Austin proposed to Natalie in August of 2017 and the love birds were married on April 13, 2019.
One song is perfectly fitting to their lifelong connection and later on reunion. It just so happened to come on the radio during their second date.
“The song was really key to our relationship,” Natalie told Today, referring to Tim McGraw’s “My Old Friend.” “It was so spot on to our journey.”
And just like that song, a recreated photo on their wedding day captures the then and now of their time together.
Once two preschoolers in a red jeep, now Austin and Natalie Tatman are husband and wife, standing side by side for better or worse.
“You’ll always be my shotgun rider,” Austin wrote on Facebook. We have a feeling Natalie has no problem with that.
Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Tatman! Here’s to many more years of love, friendship and front seat rides in red jeeps.
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