For the first month or so of my sophomore year in college I had been telling my roommates about this girl named Molly that I thought was really cute. Finally, they got sick of me talking about her and gave me a one-week ultimatum to actually talk to her or else I would be stripped of my manhood. Thinking I would have no trouble swooning the unsuspecting freshman, I agreed to this challenge and awaited my opportunity. A couple days later I went alone to get breakfast before a class and saw none other than Molly…..and her roommate….sitting at a table alone. While this was not the ideal setup, I took what I could get and asked if I could sit with them. I ended up having a great conversation with her very talkative roommate and maybe got a fake laugh or two out of Molly. I left the cafeteria that day accepting defeat. However, the smallest sliver of hope was kept alive in me for the next couple weeks because I kept catching Molly looking at me from across the cafeteria during dinner each night. I was not sure that this was not just a coincidence considering I was constantly looking at her, but I kept the faith and made sure to act as cool as possible whenever she was near. Welp, it was no coincidence people! One night after basketball practice, I returned to the locker room to find that a Molly Campbell had sent me a direct message on Instagram. I was positive that there was a flirtatious message awaiting me, but to my dismay, the message was a request for homework help typed by Molly’s friend! At this point I was about to call it quits on the coldhearted woman, but I laid it all on the line and asked her if I could get her phone number and talk to her more. And she said yes! And even threw in a smiley face emoji, wow things were really heating up. I started texting her and studying with her (aka talking to her while she tried to study) in the library the next day. Fast forward three weeks and we were going out on our first date! The rest is history 

Loren planned an entire day for us in Holland, Michigan with the night ending at the Windmill Island Gardens. It was after dinner so the park was completely closed, but we were still able to walk around the gardens. Loren kept things very casual, acting as if he had no real plan besides to just wander around and potentially find a nice spot to watch the sunset. While this was all happening I was thinking that this would have been the perfect night for him to propose, but of course he was acting so casual I thought there was no way it was going to happen. Eventually we sat in front of the old Dutch windmill to watch the sunset. We sat and talked for a long time and watched the horses run around in the field in front of us. After being bitten by mosquitos all night I was ready to go, but Loren claimed that he had to go to the bathroom and ran off. He shouted to me that he had found a candle behind a bush and insisted that we had to light it. When he brought it to me, I noticed there was a note wrapped around it that contained a riddle. It wasn't until I had read the last line that I realized he had written the note. Once I finished reading it, our song started to play on the speaker he had brought with him and secretly connected to his phone. This whole time I was trying to calm myself down on the inside because I was still so convinced that he was not going to propose on this night. As I looked up I watched as he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!