We’re getting married

We first met at University of Illinois in 2013. Lauren attended U of I, and Dan was visiting for his 21st birthday. We both attended a party hosted by a mutual friend. We started talking after that night and began dating a month later. Our first date was at Goebberts Farm in Barrington on October 11th, 2013.

Now you may read that headline and gasp. Well the proposal was something that need the right combination of timing, preparation, and deceit to pull off the perfect proposal. It all started with first finding the perfect ring, and location. The preparation of location that was in mind seemed to never pan out as planned. Mix this with timing of when we could do it was a tall task. I (Dan) finally came to a conclusion of the perfect place. We enjoy hiking and Devil’s Lake, so that would be the location. The timing of when we could get a weekend was the next challenge. I had to convince all of Lauren’s closest friends and family to be busy, to not preoccupy our weekend getaway. The deceit portion was the most difficult to have create new lies to why we were visiting Devil’s Lake. The perfect day was upon us, 12/20/2020 would be the day of the proposal. We live in Illinois, and there was zero snow fall, but when we arrived in Wisconsin there was a lot more snow. We had hiked up the hillside to ascend Devil’s Lake to get to it the Devil’s Doorway. After trekking through its treacherous conditions of snow and ice, we finally made it to the lookout. There I got down on my knee and proposed. Lauren was at a loss for words, that I had to ask “So, is that a yes?”. Lauren, in tears states “Yes!”.