Stephen and Ayesha Curry have been married for more than a decade, but the couple’s love story started way back when they were teenagers.

The pair met when Stephen was just 15 and Ayesha was 14 while attending the same church in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In a biography about his life entitled The Miraculous Rise of Steph Curry, Stephen’s sister recalled Ayesha making an impression on her brother early on.

“She would find him after church, barely say two words, and, like, walk away,” Sydel recalled in the book. “That’s how she would flirt with him in a way. He clearly liked it. It left an impression.”

It would be several more years before Ayesha and Stephen’s conversations evolved. In 2008, they reconnected after bumping into each other in L.A. while Stephen was in town for the ESPYs. “I mean, it was friend vibes … until I dodged the first kiss,” Ayesha later told the New York Post.

However, once Ayesha realized that her former childhood pal was interested in something more than friendship, everything fell into place. Stephen and Ayesha tied the knot on July 30, 2011, and welcomed their first child, daughter Riley, the following year.

Their family has grown since then with the addition of daughter Ryan and son Canon in 2015 and 2018, and in March 2024, they announced they’re expecting their fourth child.

Read on to relive Stephen and Ayesha’s sweet journey.

2003: Stephen and Ayesha meet

Stephen and Ayesha first crossed paths when they were 15 and 14 years old. “We were just kids,” Ayesha previously told PEOPLE. “He was the cute boy at church that all of the girls were obsessed with, so I made a generalization that maybe he wasn’t for me.”

“I don’t remember the exact first day I saw her,” Stephen countered, joking, “There was no wind blowing in her face with a backlight.”

July 20, 2008: Stephen and Ayesha reconnect
By 2008, a teenage Ayesha had moved to Los Angeles to model and act. It was there that she reconnected with her future spouse, who was in town to attend the ESPYs (the athlete took home an award for Breakout Athlete that year). “I didn’t know what the ESPYs were,” Ayesha told PEOPLE.

In fact, she had a “no athletes” policy when it came to dating. “My parents found this paper from my high school theater class where you had to write down what you wanted in a significant other,” she said. “At the bottom, it said, ‘No athletes because they’re arrogant.’ ”

2008: Stephen and Ayesha go on their first date
Stephen and Ayesha Curry. Steve Jennings/Getty
The pair’s first date took place on Hollywood Boulevard. “I picked him up in my ’98 Astro van,” the restaurateur recalled on Jimmy Kimmel Live in June 2019. “He had on 3XL shorts, so that’s a sign of the times. It was our first official date.”

When asked what they did together, Ayesha replied, “We did Madame Tussauds. Listen, we were 18 and 19, so if that, like, clarifies anything. And we got chai tea lattes.”

She later told PEOPLE that Stephen’s demeanor impressed her on their date, “He was so funny and silly. The absolute opposite of what I thought he was going to be.”

Ayesha also later recounted the pair’s first kiss to the New York Post. “He was mid-conversation and came flying at my face like a thief in the night,” she recalled. “So I was, like, ‘No.’ Then I thought, ‘Oh, I didn’t know this is what was happening.’ ”

2008: Ayesha tells Stephen she loves him for the first time
At some point along the way, the tables turned, and Ayesha found herself pursuing Stephen.”I told him I loved him first and he said, ‘I feel like I love you too, but I don’t want to say it unless I’m sure because I just want to be sure that when I say it, I really mean it,'” she said during an interview with PEOPLE. “I got in my car and drove home crying.”

Though Ayesha wound up having to wait a few months to hear those three little words, Stephen made sure to make them memorable. “We were watching a movie and he turned to my ear, and he said, ‘I love you,’ ” she recalled. “Mind you, my parents were sitting right there. His parents were sitting right there. Our siblings were sitting right there. I was trying to sit and watch the movie, but I was freaking out. It was so special because I knew he meant it.”

July 2010: Stephen proposes to Ayesha
Stephen recalled setting the scene for his proposal to Parents in 2016. “The plan was to act like we were going to a family cookout,” he said. “So we pulled up to the house and I stopped in the middle of the driveway, got down on my knee and went into my spiel. Little did I know the whole family was looking out the window.”

Ayesha also spoke to the Charlotte Observer about the sweet moment. “He asked me if I knew where we were standing. It was [in the driveway of my parents house] the spot where we had our first kiss,” she said. “He pulled me close and started saying all these sweet things and then dropped down on one knee. I was in a state of shock.”

July 30, 2011: Stephen and Ayesha get married
The teenage sweethearts tied the knot on June 30, 2011, in a North Carolina ceremony at the Ballantyne Resort, with approximately 400 of their nearest and dearest in attendance. The bride wore a strapless gown with a full skirt and an intricate floral embellishment just below the waist.

July 19, 2012: Stephen and Ayesha welcome their first child