After moving to Connecticut with her mother, sister, and brother, Natalie lost contact with her best friend at the age of 5.
12 years later, she decided to find him on social media and the two realized that they were not only childhood best friends but also soul mates.
Now 24, Natalie and Austin Tatman knew they had to pay tribute to their preschool days that originally brought them together. The two recreated a photo from 1999 that featured them standing side-by-side in a red Jeep Wrangler and it melted everyone’s hearts.
Natalie said she and Austin were placed in the same preschool class and quickly became best buddies. “We just automatically became best friends and our parents realized it,” Natalie told PEOPLE.
“It’s strange when you’re that age — you don’t usually hang out with the opposite sex. But from when we were 2 until we were 5, we were constantly together.”
Even though she admits her memories of her childhood days are fuzzy, her parents have kept their astonishing moments in her mind by telling adorable stories of them and through lots of pictures.
“I have very faint memories, but our parents have told us many stories,” she said. “Like on Halloween in 1999, Austin held my hand in the car on the way to trick-or-treating. Those are little things that our parents tell us, where they knew, ‘This is insane that they’re interacting like this.’”
“Every picture that we have — even in a group — we were together and then everyone else was on the side,” Natalie added. “I just basically have memories of always being with him, regardless of whether I remember the detail of the memory or not, I knew we were always together.”
The day she remembers best was the last day she saw Austin. At only five years old, her parents got divorced and they moved from Florida to Connecticut with her mom and siblings.
“I remember the very last day that I saw him, not knowing that I wouldn’t see him for over a decade,” she told PEOPLE. “My last memory of him is [when] we made Rice Krispy treats in his parents’ kitchen… and then we were separated.”
After moving, the two lost contact. From time to time, she would think about him and wonder what happened to her best friend.
“I briefly remember when I was 8 and 10, I would ask my mom about Austin and she would say, ‘I’m sure if you remember him, he remembers you,’” Natalie recalls. “But I had no way of getting in touch with him at the time.”
It was in 2012 when Natalie, 17 at that time, discovered her mother’s old address book with Austin’s name listed on it.
“I knew his last name started with a T, but I don’t know why — I still have no idea to this day why — I went to his name out of all the names that were in there. This thing was full,” Natalie said.
“As soon as I saw [his name and old address], I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I remember him.’ There was this overwhelming feeling of ‘I better go find him on Facebook before I miss out on this opportunity,’” she expressed.
Natalie immediately recognized his face in his pictures and added him on Facebook. Like her, Austin also remembered those happy moments they had as kids.
The two organized dinner plans with their families and officially reunited on July 31, 2012.
“Ever since that time, we’ve been together. It was like the second I saw him, it was a friendship that had come back to life instantly,” Natalie shared.
It was during their second date when they realized they were already in love with each other.
“We both knew we were in love with each other after being on our second date,” Natalie said. “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.’”
The two endured a year of long distance relationship as they finished up their high school senior years in Connecticut and Florida. Then, Natalie went to the University of Central Florida while Austin went to the University of Florida.
After graduating from college, Austin proposed to Natalie in front of their family and friends in 2017. On April 13, 2019, they got married at The Mulberry in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.
“After we had picked the place we were gonna get married, that’s when it was like ‘I’m literally marrying my preschool sweetheart.’ This is insanity,” she told PEOPLE.
“The Jeep was our favorite thing about the wedding. It was a perfect recreation of it.”
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