Our story begins at THE Ohio State University, as two nervous but excited freshmen were dropped off for their first day of college at the Smith-Steeb Floor 9 Dorm #SMINEforever. The floor which consisted of mainly out of state freshmen would lead to what is now our closest friend group from college. Although we met on our first day of college 7 years ago, our relationship started out as friends for the first few years. However, we immediately knew there was a special connection and soon found ourselves talking daily (although strictly as best friends). We bonded over our shared enjoyment of attending various Ohio State sporting events, watching new movies and trying out new restaurants and soon found ourselves doing many of these date-like activities together. After sophomore year we ended up in the same major, having most of our classes together and spending hours together studying. As our relationship grew, we continued to talk everyday during summers at our respective hometowns (ATL & MSP) and a semester in Spain for Britta during her junior year. By senior year we decided to make our relationship official on 12/4/2016 (although that ended up being a random date we picked). After graduation we both accepted offers in new states and were excited to start a new adventure of our lives and felt our relationship was strong enough to handle long distance. After 18 months of many flights between Orlando, Waco and Minneapolis, we took the leap of faith to move in together as Brian accepted a role at Target in Minneapolis where I was currently working. Two & a half years later we have lived in 2 apartments, added 2 fur babies (Winston & Marley), and have been on countless adventures enjoying this chapter of our lives.

On 7/17/2021 during what has been one of the busiest summers of our lives, Brian told Britta he wanted to surprise her with a date day that he had planned. Britta was immediately suspicious as she is always the one who plans any sort of date-like activities, but with many of her friends and family supposedly out of town this weekend she assumed it would not be the day that he would pop the question. On a beautiful sunny Saturday in Minnesota, they traveled to Schram Winery in Waconia, MN for their Vine to Wine tour. In what turned out to be insane stroke of good luck, the 6 other people on the tour did not show up and Britta and Brian received a private wine tour that allowed them the opportunity to try nearly all of the wine that the winery had to offer. Britta couldn’t help but notice that Brian seemed distracted during the tour but it was extremely hot out and she figured he might just be uncomfortable in the heat. After the tour they sat outside at a picnic table with a bottle of their favorite wine from the tour and were chatting about life. As the conversation turned serious, Brian all of a sudden says "chug your wine, lets go for a walk". As we were walking through the vines, Brian got down on one knee and flustered in the moment, forgot most of the speech he was going to say to propose to Britta but remembered the most important part and asked her to marry him. At that moment, a secret photographer popped out of the vines and captured the proposal moment and we had a short photoshoot that followed. Afterwards, we headed to Britta's moms house to surprise her parents with the good news! To Britta’s surprise, a large group of her friends and family were already there to surprise her as Brian had also planned a surprise engagement party! The day was an amazing whirlwind and something both of them will cherish forever.