The year is 2014. Lillie is a sophomore at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign and is taking “Intro to Public Relations.” Nate is in his first year of grad school, getting his Master’s in Advertising, and was selected to be the teacher's assistant (TA) for that same course. While it was a large class of about 100 students, Lillie quickly noticed the cute TA but never mustered up the courage to introduce herself. Having never met, when the semester ended, the two never ran into each other throughout the rest of their college careers. The year is now 2017. Lillie has been out of college for almost a full year when her dear friend and bridesmaid Katie Schrantz brought her to an alumni networking event for recent graduates. It was at this open bar event that mutual friends reintroduced Lillie and Nate. Lillie immediately recognized him but couldn't place how exactly they knew each other. Having not met before, Nate was certain that they really didn't know each other but mentioned casually that he used to TA so perhaps that was the connection. It was in that moment that a slightly tipsy Lillie realized this was THE hot TA from sophomore year and immediately proclaimed so out loud to the group. Suffice it to say, that piqued Nate's interest and the two spent the rest of the night talking. A few weeks later they went out on their first date and the rest is history...

The year is now 2020. Amidst a global pandemic, Nate was ready to pop the question! While he had hundreds of ideas for the perfect proposal, due to ever changing COVID-19 regulations, most ideas were quickly made impossible. As if proposing wasn’t stressful enough! As luck would have it, about a week before Nate would have the ring in hand, the city of Chicago had decided it was safe for restaurants to offer limited seating. Nate quickly called their favorite restaurant to reserve their private room so he could execute the perfect proposal. To ensure Lillie had no idea of what was to come, Nate noted the lightened restrictions and suggested they have a proper date night to get out of the house and dress up for a change. She didn’t suspect a thing. On June 27, after checking in at the restaurant, the two were escorted to the private room which had been fully decked out with amazing food, personalized décor and to Lillie's genuine surprise, a spectacular diamond ring. To top it off, Nate had his and Lillie's families waiting outside the room to join them for dinner and celebrations following the proposal.