A woman has gone viral after recreating a 20-year-old photo booth shot with her best friend and teenage crush—who is now her husband.
Sharon and Kerry, both 36, first met during music class in junior high and she "started crushing hard." They became friends and began bowling every weekend with their mutual friend Nick—cue the photo booth picture of the trio at the mall.
"Twenty years ago in a mall photo booth, I took this photo with my crush and his best friend," Sharon explained in a TikTok post that has amassed more than 3 million views.
The black-and-white photo shows the teenage Sharon and Kerry looking at each other, while Nick sticks out his tongue for the camera.
The footage then shows the trio recreating their photo in the present day, adoring glances and all. Adding an arrow pointing out Kerry, Sharon wrote in an on-screen caption: "I fell in love with this one.
"The crush is now my husband. And his best friend is now mine too."
TikTok viewers were delighted with the two images and the couple's love story. "That photo is from a 2000s rom-com and you can't convince me otherwise. It's perfect," wrote one commenter.
"This is what TikTok and the internet is supposed to be! Beautiful story," posted another.
Sharon and Kerry married 13 years ago and now have six children together. According to them, "somehow nothing has changed."
Their story is more unusual than you might expect. A 2017 survey conducted by Stanford University found that just 9 percent of couples met in school or college, down from 19 percent in 1995.
Despite finding "the one" so young, it wasn't smooth sailing for Sharon and Kerry, who went through rounds of "kiss, breakup, kiss, breakup" as teenage emotions ran high.
Sharon told her TikTok viewers that the couple grew apart, loved others, adventured and grew up before finding their way back together.
"Nick became a best friend," she added. "Sticking around for every breakup and makeup Kerry and I went through." He now spends Christmas with the family and their children call him "Uncle Big Nick."
The photo booth snap isn't the only memento of Sharon's teenage crush. She has also posted a video of her reading aloud a diary entry she wrote about him at the age of 14.
"I'm in love with Kerry Johnson, true love," she wrote. "We're not going out or anything but he's my best friend and I seriously love him. I know I sound stupid and all, but I really love him. I think I will either end up marrying him or I will be his best friend forever, seriously.
"I had a huge conversation with him today and he feels the exact same way about me. I never ever thought he liked me that way. I thought he hated me but apparently not, we decided we should stay best friends and that's all. We both know that we love each other because we don't want to screw it up, us getting married.
"But we do both know we love each other and it's OK, we're soulmates," she added. "I really do love him and it's not just puppy love. It's not just a crush."
Last November, another couple took Twitter by storm after sharing 22 years' worth of photo booth pictures—an annual tradition for the pair.
"We were on one of our first dates and we were catching the train home and we spotted the photo booth and thought it would be fun to mark the occasion," Giles Paley-Phillips told Newsweek. "Even though it was a new relationship we both felt it was something special."
A year later, Giles and Michelle found themselves back at the same photo booth. "It just seemed meant to be," he added. The couple are now married and have two sons—who were introduced in the ninth and 10th images.
"Family traditions are a wonderful thing, and should always be encouraged," said Giles. "This definitely makes us feel together."
