Thanks for stopping by. We are thrilled to be approaching our big day, and I am looking forward to sharing more about how we started dating. Like a lot of people, Kimmy and I met at school. We had a number of classes together our first year, including the paperback romance-esque Legal Analysis, Writing, and Research I, but somehow we didn't really hit it off until into our second year of law school. We both became student writers on the Iowa Law Review. The twice-weekly, mandatory evenings checking citations and correcting punctuation were somehow fun because I had a fantastic friend sitting beside me - Kimmy. In the midst of an already busy year, Kimmy somehow persuaded me to start volunteering at the Food Bank. Sometimes there were a dozen other law students, sometimes it was just the two of us. Either way, we helped people and spent time together, so how could I complain? We gradually started talking more and more, and I even seem to distinctly recall live-texting the major plot points of a terrible Sy-Fy Channel movie while we were both home over the winter break. (For those curious, I seem to recall that the heroine was revealed, late in the movie, to be carrying the spirit of an alien princess with her, which was the only way to force the pyramids to deactivate either the solar flares or volcanic eruptions threatening our planet. Compelling stuff.) In January of 2016, when we returned to class, we picked right back up. One day, volunteering at the Food Bank, Kimmy mentioned she had an extra ticket to Brrrfest the next day. That is when I made the most romantic move of all: I handed over the 30ish dollars needed for an extra ticket to a winter beer festival. The very next day, we attended the Iowa City Brrrfest and had an incredible time. Now, four Brrrfests in, and many dates down the line, I could not be more pleased about live-texting that Sy-Fy movie or forking over the 30ish dollars. It has been an incredible few years, and I look forward to many more.

It was January 2019. We’d been together for about 3 years and I had just moved from the desert to the frigid north to join Peter in Sioux Falls. I knew he was going to propose, but I thought it would be later in the month when we planned to be in Iowa City for our fourth BrrrFest. But Peter wanted to surprise me. It was Friday night and we were planning our weekly date night when Peter suggested a fancy restaurant downtown. He suggested we dress up a little. And when I fell asleep on the couch after work, he didn’t offer to bail on the reservation and just order pizza. I knew something was up. My suspicion was confirmed when I went to get into the car and Peter had to run back into the apartment to get something (get what?) and came back with a square box in his pocket. Like I always do, I immediately ruined the surprise and told him I knew about his plan. I was just too excited. But we went to dinner and I let him surprise me as much as was possible after I ruined everything. Nothing happened at dinner, but that wasn’t a surprise. It’s not our style to make a scene. But after dinner we went into a little French bakery and got our favorite macarons. We sat in a booth and he held my hands and gave a little speech. I sobbed. It was perfect. Then we did an escape room where the objective was to steal Kim K’s engagement ring. We escaped. Perfect night.