Forever feels better at the beach

Our story began in 2019 at our friends (Tyler and Meagen Lloyds) wedding in Grinnell, Iowa, where we started talking about our mutual embarrassment of my friends dance moves at the reception. There was an instant connection and we talked until the early hours of the morning (probably the latest Maggie had ever stayed up). The next morning Maggie came over to the house to meet my 8 week old puppies, and from there we had our first official date at the Iowa State Fair. Unfortunately we had to say goodbye after getting our fill of fried cheese and a bucket of cookies. I was absolutely smitten with her and knew I had to see Maggie again, so three days later (with Maggie’s cautious, and rightfully so, permission) I booked a flight to New York City to visit her where she got to share some of her favorite things about the city with me. It went really well and our connection grew, so well that I was invited back for a couple more trips! Even though our situation seemed ridiculous, we didn’t want to say goodbye for good. Then there was covid, a terrible and chaotic time that flipped everyone’s lives upside down which led to some changes and was the beginning of the stars aligning for us. Maggie moved out of the city and in with her parents and their new, hairy family member, Ritter Sport. We weren’t going to let covid keep us apart, so we would drive 7+ hours to meet in the middle (oftentimes Ohio) and eventually took a trip to Kure Beach together where we made our relationship official. Because of covid and everyone trying to avoid each other, it wasn’t a great socialization time for a covid puppy like Ritter. In hopes of spending more time with Maggie and getting her to visit Iowa, I offered to help train Ritter, and it worked! Maggie and Ritter stayed with us where they got to meet Brynn (my wonderful daughter), Anna, and the love of Ritter’s life, Flash. I must have been doing something right because Maggie found a job at the University of Dubuque and moved closer to us. We were still long distance, but made it work with weekend visits between Grinnell and Dubuque until we moved to Dubuque as well. We found a home for us to grow together in and have thrived as a family. In 2025, we took our first family international trip to Germany to meet Maggie’s German family and then made our way to Paris, where I asked if we can be together forever (she said yes!). With all unlikely odds of us meeting, being born on different continents, coming halfway across the US to go to a wedding and living a thousand miles away, we took a chance at love. Now we’d like to offer you all a chance to share in our special day and celebrate our leaps for love together.