Michael Myvett and Mattison Haywood were identified Friday as two of 10 victims in Thursday's tragic bus crash in Northern California.
The recently engaged couple, who had been dating since 2011, was chaperoning high school students to Humboldt State University.
"She will always be in my heart," Mattison's tearful mother Carla Haywood said.
NBC4 spoke with Mattison's parents Friday at their home in Chino. Mattison, 25, was a high school and college basketball player, an artist and was studying to become a doctor while planning a life with her fiance Michael.
"Had only one of them survived, the other would be an absolute wreck because they were two peas in a pod," Mattison's father John Haywood said. "Rest in peace baby, daddy loves you."
Carla Haywood learned of the crash from Michael's grandmother.
"(She said) 'The bus that crashed was the one they were on.' And I said, 'How do you know that?' She said, 'Cause I took them to the bus station and I know what bus they got on," Carla Haywood recalled.
In a whimsical engagement, Myvett proposed to Haywood on Christmas Day on bended knee in Paris. It was a trip they both were looking forward to for a long time, said Davonna Foy, a friend of the couple.
"Michael loved Mattison since even I could remember, even before their courtship," Foy said.
The happy couple were described as very sweet people whose fairytale romance was "like a movie."
Last week, Mayvett told his cousin, Trinice Sampson, he wanted to have a family with his fiance.
He said that they wanted to wait until Haywood finished the medical program she was in but that it was very important to the both of them to have children, Sampson said.
Haywood attended Concordia University before meeting Myvett at Humboldt State University. Together they built a community of friends who loved them both.
Those friends were in shock Friday and took to their Facebook pages to write messages about the loss in their lives.
"My heart just sank to my feet. We are going to need each other more than ever now. This feels like a dream...," one friend wrote.
Another friend commented on how beautiful of a couple the two were together and that the loss was "truly a tragedy."
An outpouring of messages from people and organizations that knew the pair continued throughout the day.
Concordia University remembered Haywood on its Twitter page.
"Our prayers are with family & friends of alum Mattison Haywood '10, who passed away Thursday in the tragic bus crash in Northern California," the school posted.
Myvett, who worked with autistic children at the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, was described as, "an extraordinary individual who positively impacted the lives of families with autism spectrum disorder every day," by a spokeswoman for the company.
Myvett's family started a fund-raising site at gofundme.com and was accepting donations to help alleviate the cost of his up-coming services, Sampson said.
The fun-loving pair's journey was cut short Thursday in what friends said was a "devastating" and "tragic" event.
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