Long story short... We. Are. Rule Breakers. It was the summer of 2017 when David and I met while working at Aerotek. There were very clear rules established starting day one…. “NO DATING CO WORKERS." Well… as I said before... We. Are. Rule Breakers. On October 27th, 2017 our company hosted an annual boat cruise where our division bonds while eating appetizers, having cocktails, and playing games. Before this day, we both "knew" of each other, however, never made a "move" to get to know one another better. After the event was finished, I invited some coworkers to my downtown Minneapolis apartment to meet up before everyone headed to downtown Cowboy Jacks. Purposely when I was extending invites, I made sure David was part of the group. David and I started chatting more and more that night "as friends" I thought... because he knew the dating rules...right? However, after that night David kept coming up with random things to text or call me about... After a few weeks of his persistence, David asked me on an official first date and we met after work at JJ's Clubhouse in Golden Valley. After that night, we spent the next 8 months "secretly" dating... Clearly, It’s no longer a secret :)

If you know Erika well, (which I would assume most of you do since your reading this) then you know there are four things she can’t live without: Wine, cribbage, her friends and her family. All along I knew that when the special day came, those four things were going to have to be involved. After phone calls to my brother, her best friends Martina and Whitney, I knew the location was going to have to be a vineyard. I decided on The Winery of Sovereign Estates out in Waconia, because an impulse trip to wine country was a little out of my budget after buying an engagement ring. THE PLAN: The plan was to have Martina and Paul (her husband) “invite” us for a wine day where we were going to go try out a few vineyards and play some cribbage. Little did Erika know (which she won’t agree on to this day since she “knew the whole time”) that not only was I going to propose, but Sean was flying out from Kansas City to be there for our special moment. Our first stop was at Sovereign Estates. We settled in, got a wine flight and played a game of cribbage- in which I still couldn’t tell you who won. As Martina and Paul went to go get us another flight of wine, I finally convinced Erika to take a walk with me to the vines that line Lake Waconia. THE QUESTION: I’m sure you can guess what happens next.. I fumble through some cheesy words and dropped to one knee to ask Erika to marry me.. In which she responds “Thank you”. Her and I still laugh about her response to this day. THE SURPRISE AFTER THE ENGAGEMENT: We did our best to convince Erika that we had dinner plans with our parents and the Kimm’s (close family friends) but were stopping at Whitney's apartment before hand for a celebratory cocktail. In all honestly, I'm not sure how well that worked out. Never the less, she was very surprised when we showed up to Whitney's apartment and she was greeted by some of our close friends and family. It was the perfect end to a better than perfect day.