A Timeline of Erin and Ben Napier's 'Love Week'

It's a Napier tradition that comes around every year, Dec. 8-13, just as the holidays are approaching. It's a celebration of the storybook romance that famously exists between HGTV's Home Town heroes, Erin and Ben Napier. Erin shares the story with the world — in particular, the couple's ardent fans and followers of her online journal and Instagram account. It's inspired, endearing and positively uplifting. Are you ready to have your heartstrings tugged? Read on.

Let's step back in time — to December 2004. Erin and Ben are students at Jones County Junior College in Ellisville, Mississippi, about 10 miles from Laurel, their hometown. Erin, then Erin Rasberry, was a design editor for the school's yearbook tasked with working on a story about an affable and popular figure on campus: Ben Napier. The two had seen each other around, but hadn't formally met. (Photo from Erin's Instagram, Dec. 13, 2023)

As Erin recounts in a post on her Instagram account, "For two years [I] had noticed him, always the center of attention, everyone’s best friend, my biggest crush. Dec. 8, we took the photos for the yearbook. Dec. 9, we went on our first date, and he met my mama. Dec. 10, we looked at the Christmas lights in Mason Park. Dec. 13, we decided we would get married someday."

Flash forward a couple of decades. Now, every year Erin and Ben set aside a week in which they go to considerable and creative lengths to re-live the magical and joy-filled time in which they first discovered they were head-over-heels in love with one another. This goes deeper and well-beyond a day on the calendar, anniversary gifts or a commemorative dinner date. It's about re-affirmation, renewal and continually restoring the sense of awe that's part of the experience of falling in love. Fortunately for us, the Napiers are all about sharing their love story.

In the lead-up to Love Week Erin often shares photos from the earliest days in their relationship. She posted this one on their actual wedding anniversary, Nov. 22, 2023.

So what happens during Love Week? For one, there's an ongoing tradition of keeping alive the practice of love letters. This is one of Ben's specialties. In fact, he frequently leaves one on the bedside table to greet Erin when she wakes up. His missives are typed out by hand on an actual typewriter and tend to be concise but beautifully touching. Take, for example, this one from Dec. 6, 2023, a photo of which Erin posted on Instagram that same day. (Note: Ben signs his love letters using his long-time nickname — "Big.")

From the Desk of Ben Napier: "Good morning!!! December 6, 2004 would be the last morning I woke up and spent a day without you. Unfocused, undriven, uncaring and unkempt. I was not looking for you, but I am so happy that God gave me you! I can't wait to spend another love week with you. I love you, Big."

From Erin's Instagram, Dec. 6, 2023 (recalling the day before they officially met): "It was unseasonably warm that day ... I was a sophomore in college. I was 19 years old. On that day, we didn't know we would someday be married — sharing a last name and a queen size bed. The day before you met The One, they were just someone with their own life, their own separate story and a plan that did not include you. And then, everything changes."

As mentioned, many of Ben's love letters to Erin are concise and to the point. Here's one from Love Week 2022: "Good morning!!! When you get up, I would like a hug. Two arms, please? I love you! Big." (Curious about the "two-arm hug" reference? Get the full story in Erin's Instagram post.)

The nostalgic Ben-and-Erin throwback pics Erin posts are something her followers can't get enough of. This one is from the aforementioned yearbook photo shoot that took place on the day the couple first met. From Erin's Instagram Dec. 8, 2023: "We took photos of Ben with a Labrador puppy in his arms and a pipe in his mouth to look 'academic and sophisticated' for the photo ... Afterword, in the yearbook room while we were editing photos, he came and sat beside me ... My heart lifted. At one point once we were alone, while I was interviewing him, he leaned in closer to me ... My heart raced now because he tilted his head as if he would kiss me, and I wanted him to so badly."

From Ben's Instagram, Dec. 7, 2023: "On this day, 19 years ago, I posted up against my 87 Buick Lesabre outside @erinapier’s dorm and waited for her to come out. She wasn’t looking for a boyfriend but had cracked that door earlier in the day when she hugged me and gave me her number. I was ready to kick the door wide open and be in her world all of the time. She was fascinating. Short pixie cut, tight sweaters, loose jeans, art school and graphic design. I didn’t even know what graphic design was! She was the most interesting and attractive girl I’d ever met and I wanted to keep talking to her. So I did."

From the desk of Ben Napier, Dec. 8, 2023: "Good morning!!! I feel like I knew by December 8th [2004]. My friends wanted to go down to New Orleans, but I wanted to see you. I was the king of the late night run to the Big Easy for a few rounds of karaoke and some beignets, but cheese sticks from Sonic and talking in your [VW] beetle sounded better. That's when I knew this was different. I love you! Big."

Entry #2,899 from Erin's Online Journal, Dec. 9, 2017: " Our first date; I think an important part of why we are more crazy about each other 13 years on is because we will never let ourselves forget how it felt when we were brand new. As long as you can always remember that and feel the same flutter you felt when you were young, it doesn’t matter how old you become or how different you are — you’re still the same people you were who fell in love and shared a Nehi and a kiss at 4 in the morning."

As part of Love Week, Ben posted this pic of Erin beneath the mistletoe on Dec. 10, 2023. "This morning, on the way to church I told the girls I've been kissing their mama for 19 years," he wrote. "Our first kiss tasted like Peach Nehi. Since then, we've kissed nearly every day ... I knew then that my life was changing, I just didn't know how much."

From Erin's Instagram, Dec. 13, 2023: "[Ben] told me 'I think I’m falling in love with you.' I told him the same. He told me he would marry me one day. I told him I would like that very much. That following week we became inseparable. I remember Christmas shopping at the mall together a few days later and in a store the music video for Maps was playing. The chorus of the song says, 'They don’t love you like I love you,' and being the brand new girlfriend to a very popular guy with more friends and connections than I had ever had, it felt like she was singing it for me. I still feel that way. And that’s love week."

From Erin's Instagram, Nov. 22, 2016: "I'm endlessly grateful for a marriage that has come easily for us. I feel like we've always understood each other in the most fundamental ways, which made disagreements rare and partnership in every decision easier. Being married to you feels as natural as breathing in and out, and to be loved and protected by you is the joy of my life."

From Erin's Instagram, Nov. 22, 2023: "I sometimes think of all the people in the world, and how the earth is just this tiny dusty speck in the universe. And somehow, we managed to find each other. ... We are so lucky to have found each other young and grown up around each other, forming these identities. I love you."