Hannah and I met unplanned on an night, at the legendary 412 apartments on the University of MN campus. My friend, Billy Porter, and I had headed down to the cities from Duluth for the weekend to meet up with friends. We had texted our mutual friend, Rachel Arseneau, when we got to the campus to meet up to and have a few drinks. The first time I saw Hannah was right away upon entering that apartment. She was standing in the kitchen, pouring herself a drink, and we made eye contact. She was wearing a black mini dress that was covered in sparkly, reflective material. Sounds like the start to a cliché and ridiculous “meet cute” story and yes, it kind of is but with our own twists. Anyways, her golden/brown/orange crazy eyes hit mine and I couldn’t look away. I immediately felt compelled to say something, I had no idea what I was going to say, I just knew I had been staring for far too long and it was getting borderline creepy. “You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen,” those were the first words I said (pretty proud of that to be honest). To which Hannah responded by putting a hand on her hip and the other hand waving in front of her eyes like Vanna White while saying, “I got them from my mama!” And I as I started laughing with her, I realized that I was in trouble.

Every summer, my family tries to do a night on the boat with Hannah’s and we decided on July 7th (2017) as the date for that event. My dad drove the boat around until we arrived on Maxwell bay. I had the ring on a boat key floaty because I had no confidence that my shaky hands were going to be able to hang on to that ring. My mom pulled everyone from the front of the boat to the back under the guise of dinner being ready. I asked Hannah to hold back and take a seat on the cushion seats in the front of the boat with me. I told her I had bought something really crazy as I showed her the boat key floaty. “You bought a boat?!” she asked (almost ready to throw me into the water). That is when I slowly got down on one knee and flipped over the floaty to reveal the ring. I am 90% sure I said something super memorable and beautiful but for the life of me I can’t remember. I also don’t recall hearing an answer from her, she just kept staring at me in shock (lol). But she had the ring on a few moments later and people were cheering so I took that as a good sign. My dad turned on the song Brown Eyed Girl, which was supposed to be timed with me taking the knee but I will let that slide. I cried far more than Hannah did and that is when this whole marriage journey began. Right there on the calm waters of Maxwell Bay on Lake Minnetonka with so many people we love so dearly.