We went on a date to the Franklin Park Conservatory in December to see the Christmas lights. The night we went, there was an evening wedding going on that we caught a sneak peak of. When it came time to plan our own wedding, this memory quickly stood out. We chose the 23rd to get married on to enjoy keeping significant events on the 23rd. We so enjoyed celebrating with those you who made it in January - we know the choice to attend/not attend wasn't an easy one. We are overall thrilled with how the day went and are happy to be enjoying married life now!

We began planning our wedding in somewhat of a reverse order when Rachel won the Brides Save Lives contest through BHLDN in June. With many 2020 brides rescheduling in 2021 and knowning we wanted to get married in January, we began booking venues and vendors. This didn't make the proposal any less special, in fact, I (Rachel) felt it was such a testament to the trust I had in Ryan, that even without a ring, I was ready to move forward with future plans. On August 1st, 2020, Ryan took me to a wonderful brunch at Lindey's - an upscale resturaunt I'd been wanting to try. He was acting completely normal so I put aside any suspisions I had about a proposal happening. Afterwards he suggested we take a walk on Scioto Mile where we'd ridden scooters and hoped to get professional engagement pictures in the future (see I told you we'd been planning, ha!). When we got there, his demeanor quickly changed ( not talking much, walking way ahead of me, not holding my hand, etc) and I knew what was up! After walking around (somewhat aimlessly), he proposed on the bridge overlooking the river /city (the same bridge pictured on this website!) . It was just as I'd hoped it'd be: short, sincere and private (except for a family taking a segway tour nearby, ha!). I said yes right away, but the truth is, we both said yes in our hearts and head many months before.

For most of our dating experience, we had to time our dates around classes/homework and then later, around the pandemic. That didn't stop us from discovering all Columbus had to offer. We've enjoyed lots of great restaurants (Cinnamon Grill and Rishi Sushi are our faves!), coffee shops (Staufs and Paper City), visiting the zoo, Franklin Park Conservatory, Columbus Art Museum, hiking, biking, hammocking in Park of Roses, riding scooters around Scioto Mile and walking around OSU's campus. We also visited Ryan's family in NC and Rachel's friends in DC and found we are very fond of roadtripping together. The COVID pandemic encouraged us to be even more creative , finding fun things to do at home like puzzles, bananagrams, Codenames, Scategories, etc. Coming off such a busy/distanced time in the first half of our relationship, we've enjoyed the concentrated time together in recent months.

Having both tried online dating in the past, in the fall of 2019, we both decided to give it another try. Rachel had just moved from DC to Columbus, OH for grad school was looking to meet new people; Ryan , a Columbus native, was looking to broaden his search. It's safe to say we were equally cynical and hopefuly going into it. We met on Hinge, where we bonded over our shared faith and sense of humor, a mutual interest in psychology/personality typing and a love of coffee and sushi. We went on to discover we were both the oldest of 4, Ryan having three younger sisters and Rachel having three younger brothers. From our first coffee date at Staufs on, we began seeing eachother regularly and despite grad school, work and the "commute" to Circleville/Columbus, we were inseperable from the get go!