It all started in 2020, when Mike packed up his Mercury Mariner and made the trek out to Colorado from California. Jackie was living in Denver and waiting for someone like Mike to come along. Like most twenty-somethings, we matched over a dating app, Hinge, and struck up our first conversation. However, Covid had other plans for us, and due to Jackie being quarantined for 14 days, no date was ever set to meet. Fast Forward to 6 months later, and Bumble brought us back together. After Jackie's captivating opening pick up line, we agreed to go on a date just a few days later. We went on our first date in May of 2021, at Dime Store Deli Bar. We bonded over our shared sense of humor, love of travel, music, and margaritas. We quickly fell for each other and made our relationship official by the end of June of 2021. Thousands of laughs, Hundreds of Jeopardy episodes, 3 years and 1 puppy later, we are finally tying the knot and making our family official.

After attending 11 weddings in 2022, and Jackie having a Europe trips postponed from 2020, we decided to plan a European vacation together in 2023...over our two year anniversary. While we had discussed the probability and timeline of getting married, nothing was set in stone. Multiple friends suspected we'd get engaged in Europe, however, Jackie was not so sure. Mike had even sent Jackie to dig through the safe for our passports, knowing Jackie would presume that's where he would be hiding the ring (it was safely stowed away in Mike's shoe). After a weekend in London, we headed for Switzerland where Mike could barely wait to pop the question. One, because he was excited to propose, but also excited to pass the responsibility of carrying the ring to Jackie. Mike planned on proposing on top of the local mountain in Interlocken, Switzerland. The evening before, we stopped at a local patio bar at a fancy hotel. Sitting in a beautiful patio with the alps in background and sipping on Hungarian wine, it came to Mike that not only was it going to be bad news rushing Jackie up a mountain at 7 AM the next morning, but that this was indeed the perfect place to propose. Mike excused himself and sprinted the quarter mile back to the hotel to get the ring. Flushed and out of breath Mike then asked Jackie to marry him in front of a crowd of tourists, and to the sound of uprorious applause from the surrounding crowd Jackie happily said YES!