Emma first put eyes on Eduardo at the Hoover Dining Hall at DePauw University in August of 2018. She immediately thought he was incredibly handsome and charming. Emma was leading DePauw's first year mentor program with five other classmates. As leaders, they were each assigned to onboard and prepare the first-year mentors to lead their groups of first-year students. Eduardo was one of the mentors Emma would be supervising and partnering with over the course of the year. After the summer training had concluded and first-year students arrived on campus, Emma wrote notes to each of the mentors she was supporting. She gave Eduardo a slip of paper with a quote on it and on the back she wrote, "I can't wait to watch you change the world. You've already changed mine. -Emma" Seven months later, when she visited Eduardo's place for the first time, she noticed a piece of paper centered above his desk. It was the note she had given him in August. Eduardo shared with her that he had pinned it above his desk the month he received it and, while it seemed nearly staged, it was a total coincidence. A month later, Eduardo and Emma were boxing up Eduardo's things for the summer when they began discussing if he would visit Emma in Dallas for her Teach for America Summer Institute. At that exact moment, Eduardo grabbed a piece of Dove chocolate that Emma had given him, and on the wrapper it said, "Book the Flight." Can you anticipate what happened next? Eduardo booked a flight to Dallas to visit Emma at the TFA Summer Institute. They have since moved to three different states, held five different jobs, lived in three different homes together, been on at least a hundred date nights, played dozens of rounds of Gin Rummy, and shared many walks with their dog, Malcolm.

You might be wondering where the envelope liner on our invitations came from. My great grandfather Steve Morse annually gifted extra large calendars with Audobon Society birds printed on them to his Northwestern Mutual Insurance clients. His daughter, my grandmother G Kitty, framed many of the large prints and had them hanging in her home for decades. My Aunt Ann decided to paint a modern version of the birds. The green in this image matched my invitations. I chose to use it as a liner and was excited to learn it is the Great Blue Heron, the exact bird that has lived in my childhood neighborhood since I was two. Eduardo proposed to me on the bridge of our neighborhood lake the bird lives on. Eduardo totally surprised me but knew I always dreamed of being proposed to there which makes the inclusion of the heron even more special. Additionally, on the afternoon of my dad's first chemotherapy treatment, while Mom and I designed these invitations together, my amazing Aunt Ann kept Dad company. There aren't more special people to honor through the liner than my aunt and dad who are both artistically gifted.