Finally!

We each have different versions of how we tell our "How We Met" story. This is Claudie’s version of the tale: I’d seen Michelle at a gay bar in Orlando multiple times, but wasn't brave enough to introduce myself. At the time, I was on a dating app and saw her profile pop up. Only THEN was I able to sum up the courage to reach out to her. A few weeks went by, and she never replied to my message. Turns out she had deleted the app (but not her profile), so she never actually saw my message. At least until…(this would be the part where she'd say I stalked her..*eye roll*) I saw a picture of her on the club’s Facebook page, learned her full name, looked her up on Instagram, and requested to follow her, then SHE messaged ME. A week later, we had our first date and the rest is history. 7 years later, here we are!

For our 6th anniversary, Michelle planned a trip for us to getaway from the city, to Galena, IL. The first thing we did after arriving in Galena was grab coffee at Trolley Depot and walk across the bridge to Grant Park. We sat down on a bench to relax from the long drive, take in the view of the lovely little town, and listen to the quiet music playing in the park--similar to how we spent many an evening early in our relationship, sitting on park benches and talking until dawn. (Turns out that the quiet music playing in the park was coming from a giant speaker Michelle’s sister, Malia, and her boyfriend had setup in a nearby pergola. They had traveled two hours to Galena from Sycamore to set the stage and secretly snap pictures the whole time.) After some time, “Never Stop” by SafetySuit, the song we chose many years ago for our first dance "if we ever got married," started to play. I looked at her with wide eyes and asked, “Did you do this?!” thinking maybe she did it for our anniversary, maybe that she was proposing. She nodded awkwardly and whispered, "I have something for you.” A little creeped out, I nervously asked, "What?" She got down on one knee and popped the question—“Will you finally marry me?" My initial response was, "Are you being serious?!" and once I realized this was no joke, I hug attacked Michelle and blubbered out a “YES!”