“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.” – Audrey Hepburn

The way Ian tells it, Our Story starts in July of 2016. He had come out to the Bristol Renaissance Faire to experience the sister show of the New York Renaissance Faire. He had been told that the stage combat show was one of the best in the country, and not something to be missed. The show was great, but once Nicole came on-stage, Ian couldn't pay attention to much else. He inquired and found out she was the director of the troupe (and a total badass). Nicole had no idea Ian existed at this point. If you ask Nicole, the story starts several months later, on the first weekend of October. She went out to see the New York Renaissance Faire and spent the weekend as a guest performer. During the day, she was invited to sit on the dais during the joust with Her Majesty's Court. It was here that she and Ian truly first "met". After the Sunday joust, Nicole was catching up with a friend backstage when Ian interjected: "I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt, and I'm sure you get this all the time, but you have the most GORGEOUS eyes." ...Nicole's friend laughed. Nicole does get that all the time. But this time, she couldn't stop blushing. Somehow she managed a response of "Thank you." Fast forward to mid-November, when they began chatting via Facebook...sometimes until the wee hours of the night. Then video-chatting. They thought they were content being friends...until finally they realized that this might just be going somewhere. Cue Nicole's birthday present from her friend Shawna being a flight to New Jersey to spend time in person with this guy. Cue Ian flying to Milwaukee a month later and deciding that, yeah, he could see himself living here. There's a lot more to this story including a lot of breweries, fun in New York City, trips to both coasts, and a broken down truck in the middle of Pennsylvania. But those stories would take up more than the 2000 character limit we're allowed in this section. You'll just have to ask us about it.