We're getting married!

Maria first met Jakob at her friend's apartment she would frequent after late nights downtown. Maria would continue to run into Jakob in community like volunteering at the Athens Harvest Feast or visiting her friends. Maria later moved into that same apartment she would stay at a year later. She and Jakob would catch each other in passing, but never really connect. Naturally, Maria and Jakob found themselves chatting on Jakob's front porch during nice summer nights in downtown Athens. After months of getting to know each other and built on a great foundation of friendship, Maria and Jakob started dating. Our first date was on 9/7/2014 at Em's Kitchen, a casual restaurant in an old soda fountain at a local Athens pharmacy. On the Fourth of July 2015, Jakob rescued a neighborhood newborn kitten stuck in the bushes near their apartments. The kitten came to be their sweet, orange female tabby cat Henri. In August 2015, we moved in together in the Historic Boulevard Neighborhood of Athens, GA, right off of downtown. There, we listened to our first records, watched movies, played with our cat in the fenced backyard, and made friends with an owl who's home was in the backyard tree. Maria remembers waking up on the morning of her 25th birthday to Jakob making breakfast playing Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" on their first record player. From June 2016 - March 2020, we rented a house ten minutes from downtown, just past Athens' beloved Terrapin Brewery. Here is where we learned what it meant to make a home together, hosted our first full-family Thanksgiving, and shared many memories with friends and family. After renting that house for nearly 5 years, we decided to buy our first home. We found our home the week of Valentine's Day just north of Athens in a tiny town of 1,200 called Comer, GA. Maria's childhood best friend's mom, who knew Maria since she was 3, Amy Hollifield, guided us through the process as our Realtor. In March 2020, we moved into our new home. Today, we pride ourselves on building a home together. We enjoy cultivating our robust garden, beautiful flower beds, planting trees, cooking and preserving our harvest, as well as spending time together. We look forward to settling down more as a married couple.

Jakob knew he would propose more than a year ago in 2022. He talked to his mom about asking for his grandmother's diamond ring just before Christmas 2022. Maria had to work in New York City the week before Christmas that year and he thought what better place to propose than at the Rockefeller Christmas Tree. Jakob brought his grandmother's ring through three airports (Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta twice, John F. Kennedy in NYC, and LaGuardia in NYC), two taxi rides, across Manhattan for a week, to Central Park, Radio City Music Hall to see the Rockettes in the Christmas Spectacular, and finally to the Rockefeller Christmas Tree near St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan. When the time came, the moment didn't speak to Jakob and he didn't feel right. So, his grandmother's diamond ring came all the way back home... And Maria nagged him over the next year. Finally, on Christmas Eve 2023, Maria and Jakob planned to start their holiday tradition of opening one gift each on Christmas Eve. Jakob went first and opened a new video game as his first gift. Maria then went next, opening a brand new telescope. Jakob then told Maria to open a second gift that was an attachment to the telescope. In the moment, Maria was fed up, saying to herself "is he really giving me an attachment to a telescope on Christmas Eve?". Maria then opened a box, inside a box, and noticed it was a white ring box and excitedly threw the ring box to Jakob's chest. He was already on one knee, smiling from ear to ear. Jakob shared his words from the heart, connecting the proposal to the telescope gift, expressing how now "we can watch the moon and stars forever". Jakob asked Maria to marry him and she said "Of Course!". They embraced each other and shared the excitement with their family.