In February of 2019 we met online, and we are indeed an OkCupid couple! Our first date was at Mo's Irish Pub in Wauwatosa (a place we have not been back to together since) during a snowstorm. Things obviously clicked well, and we became official significant others in April, shortly before Jesse spent his summer working in Alaska. I (Abbie) went up to visit him that July around his birthday for my first time in the state, and could immediately tell why he loved it so much. We moved into an apartment together in Wauwatosa when he returned for the season that October. Shortly thereafter 2020 hit and we know what that year brought, but we happily spent and more in our apartment together. In 2022 we bought our first home, nearby in Milwaukee proper, which we live in now and adore, and have had many adventures (traveling and otherwise) since, the most recent of which being finally getting back up to visit Alaska again in 2024, and the perfect time and place to get engaged.

For those that don't know, Jesse proposed in our second visit to Alaska as a couple, in June of 2024. After not having been back since soon after we met in 2019, we were able to spend most of the month of June exploring the spectacular state, which clearly has quite a bit of significance to the us. After switching gears a bit (the initial plan was to propose on the same hike we had done years before, but couldn't in 2024 due to snow), we managed to road trip out east to Wrangell St. Elias National Park, where Jesse took a knee on the Root Glacier as we took self-timed photos.

Being a designer and illustrator, I couldn't not include a bunch of little details when it came to celebrating our relationship and wedding. So the mountain on the invitations? That is Denali, North America's highest mountain, in a national park of the same name in south central Alaska. It is based on a photo we took while visiting in 2024, and was central to the first trip we took together as well. The florals and plants in the stationery are also nods to parts of our relationship, including Alaska. The tiny blue flowers are alpine forget-me-nots, Alaska's state flower, and the tall, hot pink gems are fireweed (which Jesse argues SHOULD be Alaska's state flower.) We also saw tons of lupine and wild irises when visiting in 2024, both of which are included in the designs. The calla lilies are a nod to some of the flowers we have in our yard and flowers my parents had at their wedding. Happy yellow tulips and daffodils are the first flowers Jesse got me early on in our relationship, which also happen to be some of my favorites. The grape hyacinths are flowers I have loved since childhood, just as the succulents included are an ongoing obsession. The little spiral circles are the Inca/Peruvian symbol of pachamama (essentially mother earth), and I dare everyone to find my favorite bird, the hoatzin, which we were lucky enough to encounter out in the Amazon rainforest in 2023.