Kelsey grew up in Eden Prairie, MN with her parents Ed + Margie, and their dogs Gretchen + Bailey. Ashley grew up in Maple Grove, MN with her parents Pam + Wai, and (unfortunately due to cat allergies discovered in 3rd grade) a myriad of freshwater fish. Kelsey started playing the viola in elementary school with her first teacher, Michelle, at the Eden Prairie String Academy. Ashley started playing piano first in 2nd grade, but her real interest was in playing violin which she started in 3rd grade at the MacPhail Center for music. In high school, Kelsey and Ashley overlapped at various music programs in the Twin Cities: Minnesota Youth Symphonies, Artaria Chamber Music School, and All State Orchestra. While they knew of each other and had mutual friends, they weren't necessarily friends with each other. Graduating in 2007, Kelsey from Eden Prairie High School and Ashley from Wayzata, Kelsey went on to the Eastman School of Music and Ashley went to The Boston Conservatory. They lived in NY and MA for a long time, even pursuing their Masters degrees: Kelsey at Eastman, and Ashley at Boston University. Ashley moved back to MN in 2013 to continue her musical studies and pursue her DMA at the U of M Twin Cities. Kelsey lived in Rochester, NY taking and winning auditions across the East Coast before eventually deciding to move back home to MN in 2015. Little did they know they would both be staying in MN for many years to come 🙂 In 2015 December, Ashley was desperately in need of a viola player for her doctoral recital quartet. Thanks to their mutual friend Ian, she took his recommendation of calling up his old pal Kelsey from their ACMS quartet days. Luckily, Kelsey was willing to drive 30 minutes to Minneapolis from Eden Prairie and have rehearsals with a couple of college students for their recitals! Ashley and Kelsey reconnected that Fall going to dinners to get to know each other, watching Fargo Season 1 at Ashley's apartment, and continuously running into each other at gigs. They both had their eye on each other but the timing just wasn’t quite right with Kelsey living in Eden Prairie and Ashley finishing her degree. In 2016, Kelsey accepted a job with Schmitt Music while also performing with several regional orchestras in the cities of Duluth, La crosse, and Sioux Falls. Ashley started playing with the Duluth Symphony and began writing her thesis. Kelsey moved to the Schmidt Artist Lofts in St. Paul that summer and adopted her first cat Lucy while one of her best friends, Kurt, was in town for the Lakes Area Music Festival. 2016 brought about many changes and uncertainty, but out of the chaos came clarity. Finally in 2017 after many months of dodging around the topic, Ashley and Kelsey separately told their friends Ian and Lindsey how much they were starting to like each other. After some encouragement from their friends and after Ashley had passed all of her final exams and her thesis was approved, they had their first real date on May 4, 2017! -Very early on in their relationship, Ashley and her parents had a cruise and vacation in Europe planned for the entire month of June as a graduation celebration, and a month after starting dating their newly formed relationship was tested with 6-8 hour time differences and many video and phone calls when wi-fi was available. They got to know each other even better by talking about all the little things and their commitment to staying in touch helped build a great foundation to their relationship. During the Aquatennial fireworks show that July, Kelsey told Ashley "I love you" for the first time and Ashley said "I love you too" 💟 Kelsey and Lucy moved in with Ashley the following Summer 2018, and since then they have enjoyed living together in downtown Minneapolis by the historic Stone Arch Bridge and Mississippi River. And the rest is history!