I have known Emma since middle school. We were mostly friends through friends. We attended some of the same events like SAIL, school sporting events, and a few PondFest’s at my family’s land. After graduating from Johnston in 2011 I went to Grandview and Emma went to Iowa State. Come 2020 mid pandemic and a lot of life later, Emma randomly responded to one of my Snapchat stories asking about a drink I was drinking. At that time I was living in St. Louis. Fortunately for Emma, I had been wanting to move back to Des Moines for some time. I ended up moving back to Des Moines in the Summer of 2020 and that’s when Emma and I really reconnected. I started cooking for her, showing her the good wines, and we spent many nights on her parents patio just catching each other up on life. September 4, 2021- We enjoy drinking wine, so I had the idea along with the help of Emma’s mom and sisters to get her friends to invite her to Madison County Winery. I got a photographer (aka Rachel) to join and somehow kept my cool enough to not set off Emma to what was about to happen. Because I knew the first person she would want to go tell and show her ring to was Rhonda, we had planned a surprise party in the Gowey’s backyard with some close friends and family. Who knew this would all come from Emma shooting her shot into my DMs?!