We met in graduate school at Iowa State University, which is part of why Ames is so special to us. Our offices were right by each other. Because there was a coffee maker near Mackenzie’s desk, Ben would use that as an excuse to talk to Mackenzie. This caused Ben to drink way more coffee than he needed and interrupt Mackenzie’s office mate, Katie Bidne (sorry, Katie)! Eventually, Ben got up the nerve to ask Mackenzie out and we ended up falling for each other.

At the end of summer of 2017, after Ben finished his PhD and Mackenzie finished her master's at ISU, we went opposite directions. Mackenzie moved to Florida for her PhD and Ben moved to Washington state for a postdoctoral fellow position. The distance was hard but long talks on the phone and meeting up all over the country made it worth it. Eventually in summer 2018, Ben got a job at North Carolina, which was at least on the right side of the country. Meeting up on weekends was much easier when we were only ~600 miles apart!

For four years, we saw each one weekend a month at some place in between where we lived which is why Ben proposed in the Raleigh-Durham airport in December 2020. We have spent a lot of our time off traveling to beautiful campsites and beaches, so it just seemed fitting. Now we live together in Wendell, North Carolina, and are very excited to see and celebrate with everyone at our wedding in Iowa!