We're getting married!

The funny thing is that Amanda and I both knew each other’s families for years before we started dating. I ran cross country for two years with Amanda’s brother Logan, and Amanda cheered and danced with my sister Regan for a couple years. My dad and Amanda’s mom even graduated from the same class at St. Cat’s in 1982. While Amanda and I had brief interactions in choir, the STLF mission trip, and the musical in earlier years, we didn’t really get to know each other until you fast forward to my senior year and Amanda’s junior year at St. Cat’s in fall 2012. After a couple weeks of talking to Amanda almost every day, both in-person and texting on our school iPads, I decided that I should finally get a date to homecoming for senior year. The best plan I came up with was following her up the stairs after school on a Friday and nervously asking her to take a survey for me on my iPad. The survey asked if she would go to homecoming with me, and I only had a checkbox for the “Yes” answer. Looking back, wow that was awkward, but at least she thought it was cute and said yes! The next month, we had a great time together at the homecoming dance, and a week after that we were official and the rest is history!

In January 2018, we had been together for over five years and were lucky enough to have gone to college together at UW-Whitewater for three years. Amanda was entering her last semester of college, and I had been working for a few months, so I decided it was time to propose. Amanda and I had had vague conversations about eventually getting engaged, but she had made it clear she wanted no part in picking out the ring. Knowing that I wanted to keep this very private, I went in and bought a ring that I liked a lot (and prayed that she would too). For two months, I told absolutely no one that I had bought it, but I knew that I wanted to be somewhat traditional and talk to her parents before proposing. Tom (Amanda’s dad) may disagree, but I found the perfect time to bring it up to both of Amanda’s parents at the same time. Amanda was on her way home from Whitewater, and I was meeting her at her parents’ house to go out for dinner. I beat Amanda there by less than 5 minutes and decided I better finally have the conversation in the couple minutes before she got home. Tom and Barb were both very excited, and I was just relieved that the quick conversation went well. Exactly one week later on March 23rd, I nonchalantly got Amanda to meet me for a walk through the woods at River Bend Nature Center, where she worked during the summers as a camp counselor. I knew how much she loved it there and couldn’t think of a better place to propose. While walking along the river, I was as nervous as I had ever been in my life when I suggested that I wanted to set up my phone to take a picture of us. She agreed thinking nothing of it, when I turned around and got down on one knee to ask her to marry me. Even though I had known what the answer would be, it was a great feeling when she said yes! We had a wonderful time over the next couple days excitedly telling our families and friends the great news, and we are even more excited to celebrate with everyone on July 20th, 2019!