Honestly, we don't really know when we first met each other. We were both involved in the Newman Center at Bradley and we were both always around. It wasn't until the summer of 2021 that we really got to know each other. That summer a group of us who were in Peoria decided to do a book club. We were able to get to know each other each week as we discussed the book and stayed way too late (past Lindsey's bedtime) at the socials afterwards talking and laughing. Once the semester began we found ourselves gravitating to each other at the various events at Newman. Lindsey and another friend were so kind to have me come to Newman to watch a movie for my birthday. Despite not enjoying the movie very much, we had fun doing buzzfeed quizzes afterwards and planning a tea exchange (Lindsey's hibiscus for my Constant Comet black tea). [Lindsey here, this was when I started to notice Branden more and more around Newman, and that little question in my mind entered...what about him?] Every December Newman hosts a Winter Formal dance. We didn't go as each others dates, but we did leave as them. It was actually as we were dancing that I asked Lindsey out. [Lindsey again, the smoothest way anybody has asked me out might I add. We had danced to other songs that evening but when a slow song came on, Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud, he asked if I would dance with him :) ]. From there we started going on dates, first was Kickabrew, a coffee shop in the town Lindsey was living in at the time. We of course had tea instead of coffee, can you sense a trend here? We also expanded our horizons and did a book exchange, I gave Lindsey "Devil in the White City" and she gave me "Squeeze Me" to read. We had weekly dates that stand to this day on Sunday evenings and planned many adventures, one being our Cathedral trips. We tried to visit every Cathedral in Illinois, and made it to all but one before I had to move out to Virginia. Thus began long distance, something we both knew and were preparing for, but didn't particularly look forward to. Our Sunday night dates moved to Zoom calls and then eventually Google Meets when Zoom no longer let us talk without cutting us off at 40 minutes for the free version. Moving was difficult, but we both were dedicated to putting in the work for a long distance relationship. We would find fun questions or talk about our weeks or throw in a few buzzfeed quizzes here and there to entertain ourselves. Eventually we added calling one other night during the week to our dates. We would also fly out and see each other once a month, alternating between Wisconsin and Virginia. In Virginia the adventures continued with so much near by in the nation's capital and surrounding areas. We went hiking in the Blue Ridge mountains, visited the historical sites of Colonial Williamsburg, and saw a concert at the Library of Congress. We switched things up and went to St. Augustine at the beginning of this year (January 2024). It was a great little vacation in the oldest city of America where we ate some of the best food we had ever had while enjoying some warmer weather. Ultimately we decided that two years of long distance was long enough [Lindsey adding in her two cents....yes, most definitely wanting to be absolutely finished never to have to endure long distance ever again long enough]. I bought a ring and on Easter Sunday 2024 I proposed on Grand View drive in Peoria, on the bluff overlooking the river. Since then we have been planning our wedding and looking forward to all the future great adventures that we will get to go on, together, for the rest of our lives.