Ryan and Kathryn met at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater during the annual rugby alumni weekend. Kathryn had been invited by her roommates to attend the rugby festivities and Ryan was the coordinator of the event. On opening night, Ryan was asked from another player to "help him out" by talking to Kathryn for him. When Ryan approached Kathryn although he did bring up the friend, that conversation didn't last very long as they began to talk to each other instead. Over the next 2 years they stayed in contact playing cat and mouse when Kathryn decided to call up Ryan (out of the blue) stating that she would love to finally go on that date that has been a long time coming. That weekend was their first date and 3 months later, Ryan and Kathryn were official.

Ryan secretly reached out to Carrie whom was a friend and camp counselor to Kathryn throughout her years at Camp Jorn. Ryan asked if she would invite Kathryn for a "small camp reunion" over the Halloween weekend as a way to get Kathryn up to camp without blowing his cover. Kathryn was so excited to hear from Carrie that she jumped at the opportunity to go back to her favorite place on earth. She remembers thinking, "how am I going to convince Ryan to drop everything and come up to camp with me?".....little did she know...... From Kathryns perspective: When Halloween finally arrived, Ryan invited me on a lunch date surprise and said its a nice place so we should get dressed up. We hopped in the car and I kept trying to guess my surprise, but all he told me was, "His name is Jake". "His name is Jake?" I thought, well what in the world does that mean? We pulled up to a house with a giant horse attached to the cutest carriage. We were going for a horse drawn carriage ride through the woods! I thought for sure I would have been proposed to on the ride, but I was not. I was slightly bummed but as we pulled back into Camp Ryan started to drive in a different direction than our cabin. We pulled up to the ampitheatre and I remember seeing ladies taking photos....by this point Ryan stopped the car and came around to open the door. "Are you ready Kathryn?" he asked, I immediately was stunned. We walked up to the Amphitheater and it was covered in rose petals and candles with a giant rose heart at the bottom overlooking rest lake with beautiful pine trees and that crisp fresh air of the north woods. That is where he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. With the professional photographer Ryan hired, we took photos all around Camp and then left for a special celebration dinner at the supper club down the road. When we arrived back to camp, Winnebago had candles on the porch and all throughout the cabin.