Woman married for 4 years froze when her husband’s preschool photo revealed the girl standing beside him
'Too bad you found out so late. It would have been an adorable wedding invitation,' a user wrote.
Natalie DeLaere and her husband, Colin DeLaere, had always believed their love story began when they met as college freshmen nearly 300 miles from their hometown. However, according to PEOPLE, a discovery revealed their story stretched back much further. Both had grown up in Fresno, California, attending rival high schools. When they finally crossed paths on a small Southern California campus, they clicked instantly. In 2020, they married, certain their journey began at eighteen, until a preschool class photo showed them standing side by side long before they knew what their lives would become. Natalie shared the story on TikTok under the username @nataliedelaere, which gained over 931,000 views and 67k likes.
The photo surfaced when Colin’s mother visited them in Arizona with a bag of his childhood keepsakes. Inside were the usual pieces of a childhood boxed away, but one picture stopped Natalie cold. It was a preschool class photo, and while she smiled at the sight of her husband as a three-year-old, she realized the face right next to his was her own. "It was honestly surreal and hilarious. We cannot believe it took us four years into marriage to discover this. We thought this whole time we first met when we were 18 years old, but we were actually little kids," Natalie told PEOPLE.
For their families, the discovery was just as astonishing. Not only had Natalie and Colin unknowingly shared a preschool classroom, but they had been placed side by side in the official photo. Their parents and siblings marveled at the idea that, even as toddlers, the two had been close enough to capture in the same frame. The couple themselves had always joked about how small the world seemed — their families had lived less than 3 miles apart, they’d shared mutual friends, and yet they had never once met until leaving town for college.
The importance of their discovery is backed by psychological research on synchronicity, a concept describing meaningful coincidences that appear connected even without a clear cause. A 2023 study that expanded a model of synchronicity awareness found that people who notice such meaningful coincidences, what researchers call "REM" (Receptiveness, Exceptional encounter, Meaning-detecting), often report stronger emotional impact and higher well-being. In other words, when something unexpectedly meaningful appears, it can deepen your sense of connection and life purpose.
When Natalie shared the story on TikTok, she thought it would amuse only close friends, but it ended up spreading all across the internet, and people were awestruck. @Prodfather said, "Too bad you found out so late. It would have been an adorable wedding invitation." @keister44 wrote, "It's a small world after all... it's a small, small world." @turradactyll chimed in, "The preschool teachers seeing this and knowing back then y’all were going to end up together." For the couple, the unexpected discovery added another layer of wonder to it. As Natalie put it, "Our life together now is better than I could’ve ever dreamed, and finding out we went to preschool together just makes it even more special."
You can follow Natalie DeLaere (@nataliedelaere) on TikTok for more relationship content.
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