We met initially at UW-Whitewater. We can't remember where or how, but we do remember talking on AIM - the popular instant messenger at the time. We went to the movies once and hung out together with friends a few times after that. We are not sure what caused us to stop talking, but we went our separate ways. Fate would have it that we cross paths again when I (Laura) had an interview at Northside Intermediate School, where Zach was already teaching. He reached out to me to wish me luck. I got the job and a friendship bloomed. A couple years later, this friendship turned into a relationship and the rest is history.

It was a Tuesday. Tuesday, May 7th, 2019. I (Laura) had been patiently waiting for this day for a while. I knew when I got home from work and saw Zach lounging on the couch that it probably wasn't going to be that night. I was irritated and started asking about dinner. We settled on ordering pizza. As we were making arrangements, Zach received a 'message from our neighbor' that her dog ran off. Zach explained to me that she was home with their young child and needed our help to find the dog. So, we got in the car and started driving around the neighborhood. We turned and went down highway county M and turned into the Mud Lake entrance. Zach suggested that we get out and start calling for the dog. He was ahead of me and as we got to the lake (no dog in sight), he stopped and turned around. As he reached for my hands, I realized quickly that we were not searching for a dog. He proposed right then and there at sunset with a beautiful setting. What's great is that we can see this very location from our kitchen window.

As many of you know, our plans to be wed changed a couple of times in 2020 due to COVID. We finally landed on a beautiful outdoor spot in Milton called Camp Wakonda. We wanted to keep it safe and small so it was just going to be our immediate family and wedding party. As 2020 continued its unpredictable path, we found out a few days prior to this already intimate ceremony that some of our immediate family members either tested positive for COVID or needed to quarantine and wouldn't be able to attend the ceremony. Due to already having to reschedule so many times, all of our family members encouraged us to continue our plan for the outdoor ceremony on the same date. We decided to limit our guests to have only our immediate family members who weren't quarantining attend. In total, we had 15 people there for our ceremony. While we greatly missed all of those closest to us who weren't able to attend, thanks to technology we were able to have all our immediate family members and wedding party join us virtually through a Zoom call. While this day didn't end up looking anything like we had originally planned, it was an incredibly special and unique day where we still felt more love from all of our family and friends than we ever could have imagined.