Fall 2013: We both showed up for Downline Ministries' Emerging Leaders program. One of the rules of this program was no dating. Hannah went a couple months without a job. During this time, she started volunteering a few times a week at a ministry in town called MAM Leawood. This happened to be one of the places Rich worked at the time and where he first noticed Hannah. Spring 2014: Downline ended and for several different reasons Rich and Hannah went their separate ways. Spring 2017: Hannah went to dinner with friend/coworker's wife, Allie, who proceed to "setup" Hannah on a date with Rich. Hannah and Rich had not really seen each other in over three years, but Hannah agreed to giving her number upon Allie's encouragement that "at least you'll be taken on a date by a kind and respectful person". Later that weekend Hannah received a text, followed by a phone call from Rich setting up their first date. Little did Hannah know that this was no setup but rather that Rich had been noticing Hannah since their early days in Downline and had wanted to take her on a date ever since. March 28, 2017: Rich and Hannah went on their first date... and the rest is history.

Rich had made dinner reservations at a favorite place of ours, The Kitchen, to celebrate the end of our "no sugar challenge". He mentioned that we should dress up since it's a nicer location. He picked me up, and when we got there our reservations weren't quite ready. So Rich suggested we go walk around the lake and sit on our favorite bench to watch the sunset. We actually ended up sitting on the bench right next to our favorite bench. We sat and watched some starlings flying over head while the sun set. Rich began to say some really sweet things, like how all the time he had imagined dating me could never live up to the greatness of our actual relationship, even the hard parts were better than he imagined. Rich pretended to receive a text that our reservations were ready. So we got up to go. Instead of him walking along beside me, he walked around in front, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him. I responded with a wholehearted "sure!" to which he responded "sure?" and I said "of course!" Our friend and photographer, Emily Frazier, came out from hiding and took some more pictures of us. We were joined by my parents and one of my best friends, Jess. Then Rich and I and my parents celebrated with dinner at The Kitchen. Rich continued to surprise me with a couple small gatherings of our favorite people throughout the weekend. Definitely a night and weekend to remember!