Dakota's Story- It was a typical Friday night, hanging out with my friends in the shop after work. We always hung out there, and people would typically stop in if they were out looking for something to do. One of my friends told me she invited a couple of her friends over to hang out with all of us. When they arrived, I had the dirtiest hat on. I thought if I ever wanted to get a cute girl to talk to me, "I better swap hats". As I was walking to my truck to get a new hat I jokingly said to my friends, "Ya never know, I could meet my future wife tonight". As soon as the group walked in, Kara immediately caught my attention. The night went on and we talked and talked, and eventually exchanged numbers. Kara will say to this day, she did text me first but in my defense I was just blown away that I got a girl like her to give me her number... and as time went on and we finally hung out I knew she was something special....the rest is history! Kara's Story- December 20th, 2014, was the day we met. Two, small town kids who were running around with their group of friends who ended up meeting each other at one of Dakota's famous, "Friday night shop parties." The first time I ever saw Dakota Borchers was when we pulled up to his shop and he was outside switching his hat. Which later I found out was because he did not want to meet a new girl while wearing a hat covered with dirt (Dakota tends to be quite dirty after long days at work- something I learned to love quickly). After a night of talking with Dakota, he asked me for my phone number. I gave it to him, and in return, I also received his. We texted each other the next day, me texting Dakota first, *eye roll*, only for him to want to talk on the phone that night. We talked for hours about the night before and when we could meet up again. Dakota wanting to talk over a phone call, rather than texting, lead me to believe that he was a special guy. Dakota DID meet his future wife that night!

Dakota had it all planned out... He started the day by facetiming me on Saturday morning and informing me of what time we would be leaving to go to our favorite little winery in Remington, Indiana for a special "day date". As we headed over to the winery, we stopped and grabbed my favorite coffee from McDonalds, and kept on our way. As we turned down the gravel lane towards the winery, Dakota started speeding up, to the point where I asked him why he was driving so quickly, since it was just late morning and we had the whole day! We got to the winery and did the tastings, just like every other time we had gone there. We grabbed a bottle of our favorite wine and headed outside to enjoy it under the grain-bin pergola. Dakota went to go let our new puppy out of the truck, but came back empty handed. Instead, he sat back down next me to and started rambling about the weather while his face turned red. I immediately knew something was up at this point. Dakota continued to pose a toast "cheers to a lifelong, happy life with you". He then proceeded to get down on one knee and ask me to marry him!