~ Come Celebrate ~ Dorothy & Luke

Dorothy and Luke had both dreamed of driving the Wienermobile after college. On the first day of Hot Dog High in June of 2019, the two Hotdoggers showed up to the Dane County Regional Airport to a large receiving line of hugs and singing. At the end of the line, Dorothy and Luke gave each other a hug for the first time, and both knew there was an instant spark. Over the next few days, they looked for excuses to sit near one another during training and bonded over New Girl, Dorothy's staunch loyalty to her Samsung phone, and their shared sense of positivity and joy. By the end of the week, Luke asked Dorothy to dinner at Cooper’s Tavern - what would become their very first date. The two continued to talk as their travels with the Wienermobile took Luke out West and Dorothy out East. They bonded over late night phone calls and facetimes, with Luke eventually flying through hurricane Dorian (feels like foreshadowing...iykyk and if you don't, keep reading) to ask Dorothy to officially be his girlfriend in September. Since then, Luke and Dorothy have built a life together full of adventure and fun. Whether its adopting their two pups, Willy and Lula, traveling to foreign countries like Greece and Thailand, encouraging one another to achieve masters and MBA degrees, or running their first (and only) marathon together, they are always pushing each other to live life to the fullest. They are overjoyed to finally tie the knot June 27th, 2026, and cannot wait to share their special day with you.

As we all know... the best laid plans sometimes go awry. April 10th, 2025: Dorothy and Luke were on a longboat cruise through a national park in Thailand. This was the time and place Luke decided he was going to propose to Dorothy, and no part of him imagined it would go down the way it did. Summer of 2025: Luke had to try to discreetly plan a proposal while they packed up and moved across the country. Like any young man undeserving of the incredible woman he hoped to marry, he really wanted to crush it. He had excel sheets cooking, hidden folders, and disguised phone contacts of his right hand women (shoutout Eferg & MK); but all in all, the plan was coming together nicely. September 26th, 2025: The new Charlotte residents set off on a “belated birthday trip” to Asheville. The plan was to drive and hike up the Blue Ridge Parkway, mirroring a trip from 2020 that was foiled by fog. The actual plan was to propose on a sunset hike in Asheville and turn around and fly up to Madison to celebrate with family and our Madison community. At this moment, Hurricane Helene was hitting Florida, and the couple’s main concern was the Pitzo family beach house. 4 Hours to Proposal: As they got into Asheville, it started to sprinkle a little. The photographer Luke set up was texting some concerns which went wholly disregarded by the ambitious groom-to-be. He was more concerned with keeping good posture when he got into victory formation soon. 3 Hours to Proposal: The rain can’t get these two down. They’re bouncing around to an overlook here, an apple orchard there. Fun! The lunch spot canceled our table due to the incoming storms. No problem! Always good to be over-cautious for your staff, right? 2 Hours to Proposal: The photographer cancels. Huh. Bit of a curveball, not going to lie. Well hey we have timers on the camera app, let’s still do the hike. 1 Hour to Proposal: Now the Blue Ridge Parkway (as in the whole darn road) is closed down. Okay, so no hike. Let’s take a look at the backup options. Botanical Gardens, closed. Greenhouse, closed. Planetarium, closed. Ideally, Proposal Time: Minus the stress, sweat, nerves, and doubt, Luke was cool as a cucumber. They were able to drive for about a football field on the Blue Ridge Parkway before having to exit again, so they did that ceremoniously a few times. Then he thought, well if no one can drive on the BRP, they can certainly walk on it! The lovebirds strolled out in a decently mild shower, and there, in the middle of the road, in the thick of the weather, Luke dropped down on one knee and proposed. They both blacked out a little bit with the excitement, but I’m sure it was a Shakespearean speech by Luke. It wasn’t out of a storybook, but it was authentic and it was theirs. Yay! Hurrah! They did it! They had dinner, opened a special bottle of wine, and called friends and family to celebrate before retiring to bed in their tiny cabin in the woods as an engaged couple. Story’s probably done right?

Nope We woke up to no power a few times throughout the night. With the AC out, we weren’t getting much sleep anyway, so we headed on out. It was a little rainy, but nothing that my little 2010 Mercury Milan and some good vibes can’t handle. Or so we thought. We were able to escape the driveway of the AirBnb but not the neighborhood. Six thwarted attempts and increased flooding left us looking for a spot to wait out the storm. We found a spot that checked our boxes of being not under 1) water 2) tree branches & 3) power lines. This is where we met the Yazans, the nicest family west of the Atlantic, who took us in for a few hours. I joined the men in heroically traversing the neighborhood to chainsaw down fallen trees blocking the route. It was an eclectic cast of characters out there: neighborhood families, elderly women, a florida woman double fisting mimosas, hispanic teenagers with machetes, and me, in my chacos and linen pants, NOT prepared for this. After a few hours and an insane woman cutting downed power lines with bolt cutters because they were “probably dead anyway”, we actually made it out… …of the neighborhood. I’ll fast forward through the next 4 hours. We tried numerous county highways to flee Asheville, all to no avail. We saw overturned 18-wheelers, houses that floated into the street, and sinkholes engulfing cars and homes. The power was out throughout the entire city, and cars are starting to park at gas stations to wait out the outage, not knowing if it would be hours or days. This was not an option for us, we were determined to get out. Our main route home I-40 was closed down due to an itsy bitsy landslide, and the only way out was towards Johnson City, the complete opposite direction to Charlotte. Gotta go around, we realized. We could go for the hole-in-one and try to skirt around the storm damage and power outages, or we could lay up and head to Johnson City where we heard there was power. Like I said, we were determined. We floated to the far outskirts of Asheville and started making our way east. Thankfully the gas tank has 150 miles 'til empty, so we’re all good. 100 50 25 10 Oof, we might be in trouble. We have no service to get routes home, but Dorothy scoured Google Maps to find a route that might just be able to get us to a town with power. All our eggs, meet your basket. We go, we keep going, we keeeeeep going, and… sinkhole. The road was stopped, and we didn’t have enough gas to go back the way we came. Desperation kicked in along with our best attempt at Hotdogger charm. We got out of the car and start asking everyone else that was stuck where they’re headed. Most planned to retire at shut-down gas stations, but then we met Sean. Turns out Sean was stranded in a storm a few years back and a stranger drove him to his final destination, so he was eager to pay it forward. Sean drove us over an hour to a town with power, waited for an hour for us to buy a gas can and lunchables at a packed Dollar General, and then drove us over an hour back to our car. A literal angel. The cherry on top was that we got the gas, but my stupid car need a particular funnel that I was convinced we lost. A wave of panic rushed over us the way gasoline was rushing over Dorothy’s new engagement ring as we failed to fill the tank, but Sean dug underneath the spare tire and found the magic funnel. We finally had some gas. This would be a very different story if not for Sean. Be like Sean. Getting tired? Yeah, so were we. It was 1 AM by the time we got back (again) to the gas station to fully fill up our tank. I grabbed some sour gummy worms, my go-to driving snack, and prepared to hit the road, spirits briefly elevated from an all time low. Then we hear a whisper, like the coo of a dove, of the word “Charlotte”. There was a man there who had just come from Charlotte. Sweet tea and lemonade, there’s hope! Grandfather Mountain is where he directs us to head, and we do. Our 16th attempt.

Heading to the promised land, we made a slight detour to a hazard-ridden road that can only be described as Satan’s driveway. Then we found the actual route and proceed. The fog was thick and path, winding, so Dorothy had to zoom in on a pixelated Google Maps to describe the sharpness of the upcoming turns. I drilled a few branches and rocks, but there was clearly a way through. Hope is building again. We got to the top of the mountain which and encountered an 18-wheeler jacked up on a tree branch completely covering the road. No way through, time to turn around. I was fully shutting down at this point at 2:30 in the morning, so on the first full day of engagement, my bride and I pull over next to a fallen tree, recline the seats, and slept in the car. We woke up an upsettingly short amount of time later as the sun rose and voices chattered. I jumped out to get the lay of the land. Some locals advised me there was no chance that truck was moving for a few days, and the only way out was the long traverse back the way we came to try the literal only other route. Defeated, I got back in the car and determined I needed a 10-minute snooze to muster up the energy to carry on. 30 minutes later, we woke up to the sounds of a chainsaw. Someone (could’ve been God himself) chopped up a bunch of fallen trees and created a way through. Like a thief in the night, he drove through. Another stranded stranger yelled to me, “There’s a way to pass, let’s go!” She held back tree branches with her body, so our car could squeeze past the truck, and finally we rounded the mountain top. It turns out the mountain’s elevation served as a backstop for the storm, and everything east of it was spared significant damage. We made it down the mountain and into a small town where we saw something that almost brought a tear to our eyes: a street light. Specifically one that is successfully illuminated via electricity. Then another, and another, and behold… a working gas station. We made it out! From a journey that began 27 hours prior, we were alive, safe, and only demoralized a few times. We found a flight to Chicago, got a last minute rental car, and made it to Madison. Even though our Madison visit was cut short, we were greeted by friends and family, took pictures by the capitol, and had an announcement party at Coopers Tavern, the location of our first date. While it wasn’t exactly what we drew up, it was certainly an eventful and memorable engagement weekend. We went through hell but did it together. It was an emotional and (at times with the detours) physical rollercoaster, and we wouldn’t have made it through the way we did if we didn’t have each other. And like everyone in Asheville told us, "if we can make it through this, we can make it through anything." Lets get married!