After seven years together, Charlie still remembers first seeing Anna while sitting in his buddies’ dorm room at UW-Madison while drinking copious amounts of Miller Lite. In the early weeks of freshman year, while everyone was still getting to know each other, Anna meandered in the room to introduce herself. As soon as she left the room, he turned to his friend John Barrett and made sure to remember her name. That meeting wasn’t quite as impressionable on Anna, as she has no recollection of that encounter. Anna merely remembers Charlie as “that redhead who was always on her floor.” After a few nights out with their new college friends, Charlie eventually asked Anna out on a date to The Nitty Gritty, an iconic burger joint in downtown Madison. Charlie, feeling full after eating just half of his cheeseburger, looked up to Anna’s empty plate and hungry smile when she asked, “Are you going to finish that?” She promptly ate the rest of his burger ... and that’s where it all started.

That freshman year was full of nights out in Madison, late nights at the library (for Anna), Badger football games, and the formation of friendships that will last a lifetime. As Anna spent late nights at the library freshman year, Charlie was stimulating the local economy a few blocks down, specifically at Hawk’s Bar and Grill, Charlie’s favorite of these local establishments. Charlie and Anna continued to date throughout college despite the living conditions of each of Charlie’s college “homes,” which were filled with anywhere from seven to eleven other college boys. During those later college years, Anna also began bartending at Charlie’s aforementioned favorite bar in Madison, Hawk’s Bar and Grill, which gave Charlie and his friends even more of an excuse to frequent the establishment. When summer break came around during those four years, they both spent weekends at the Hoffmann family cottage at Bear Lake, often packing the pontoon and the local bar over capacity with friends who decided to tag along. Following graduation, Charlie decided his talents would be best appreciated in our nation’s capital. After dating for four years, this was Charlie and Anna’s first time not living within the same small college town. Anna stayed in Wisconsin for another year while working and applying for physical therapy graduate programs. She applied to schools both in Wisconsin and on the East Coast, leaving the decision up to God. Well, God must have wanted them together because, just a year later, Anna packed up a U-Haul to drive to Baltimore just 50 minutes outside of Washington, D.C. The two spent the next three years riding the train to see each other, trading off weekends to explore both cities. Their favorite weekend activities included organizing brunch with friends, exploring Baltimore’s seafood and live music scene, planning fancy dinner dates, and bribing bartenders into putting Wisconsin sports on T.V.

Charlie spent the afternoon of March 2, 2019, anxiously watching Anna study as the engagement ring he picked up months before, sat in his duffel bag. He had commissioned the ring months earlier from a jeweler back in Milwaukee who incorporated the diamond from his Great-Aunt Betty’s wedding ring into the engagement ring. Weeks earlier, he had convinced Anna to go on a double date with their friends Chrissie and Taylor despite her midterm exam on that upcoming Monday morning. The other couple was “conveniently” running late, which gave Anna and Charlie the time to grab a drink together and walk along the Baltimore harbor in Fells Point. It was there that Charlie got down on one knee, asked Anna to marry him and promised her a lifetime of adventure. Before Anna could respond, a photographer jumped from the bushes to capture the moment and Charlie slipped the ring on her finger as swiftly as possible to avoid dropping it into the harbor. Anna was so shocked at the whole scene that Charlie had to ask her, “Wait, did you say?” We want to thank all of you for being such a large part of our lives and relationship together. We hope that you will not only be there for our wedding on August 6th, but that you will continue to keep us in your prayers during this exciting time.