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Kelsea Ballerini<\/a>\u00a0is celebrating\u00a0<\/span>Chase Stokes<\/a>‘ 31st birthday by sharing the very first DM she sent him at exactly 1:07 a.m. on Dec. 1, 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n The 30-year-old country star took to Instagram on Saturday and posted a carousel of photos and videos from their time since becoming a couple. The first few photos show them enjoying the outdoors and taking in a concert. There’s also video of the couple sharing a laugh and singing to each other.<\/span><\/p>\n But it’s the last photo in the carousel that shows how the relationship came to be — a screenshot of Ballerini shooting her shot and sliding into Stokes’ DMs. She wrote, “Hiii chase stokes.” The <\/span>Outer Banks<\/span><\/em> star responded a little over two hours later, “Hey there how u doin.”<\/span><\/p>\n The rest is history.<\/span><\/p>\n In her caption, Ballerini wrote, “[H]appy birthday, my sweet virgo.”<\/span><\/p>\n On Tuesday, <\/span>ET spoke with the happy couple<\/a> at the\u00a0<\/span>2023 MTV Video Music Awards<\/a>, where Stokes\u00a0confirmed that the pair had been official for “about nine months now,” and revealed that he’d actually given himself a pep talk before their first date, which mainly consisted of him telling himself, “Don’t screw this up! Don’t screw this up.’ Because I kind of knew before then, I was like, ‘Uh oh, I really like this girl.'”<\/span><\/p>\n