Jack and Emma met in November of 2018 at a regional Cru staff training in Lexington KY. At the time, Jack was interning at The University of Kentucky and Emma at The Ohio State University. They spent the week of training in the same group and were interested in each other, but didn't think there was a chance of seeing each other again so what was the point? That year, The University of Kentucky switched to a new location for Cru's annual Winter Conference - Indianapolis, where Ohio State conveniently attended. Jack's role for the conference was ballroom security and Emma's was photography, which led to many conversations together in the back of the ballroom in between events. Both were confident in being interested in one another, but there was the looming long-distance-dating factor. About a week after Winter Conference, Emma called Jack to address the feelings they had for each other and to share her openness to trying long-distance dating. Jack agreed to trying and that was round #1 of dating. Long story short, there were a couple attempts at dating long distance that were not ideal. However, when Emma joined staff with Cru full-time she was eventually placed at The University of Kentucky for her assignment. Finally, getting to be around each other in person led to dating attempt #3 which started in October of 2019. And after a year of dating, their third attempt resulted in Jack proposing to Emma in her hometown of Bellefontaine, OH on December 12, 2020.