Jack and Megan met somewhere in the Pacific Ocean while aboard the MV World Odyssey during Semester at Sea’s 2016 Spring Voyage. They quickly became friends spending time talking about movies, traveling, and sharing stories from back home. While traveling with their friends in the first country they visited, Japan, Jack always asked to sit with Megan on buses and trains, and volunteered to carry her backpack for her. He was clearly head over heals for her, and she kindly put up with his flirting. After spending more time together on the ship and in Vietnam, having late night talks under the stars and playing games, it became clear that they were meant to be together, and on February 20th 2016 Jack asked Megan to be his girlfriend at Ngwe Swuang beach in Myanmar. Jack and Megan shared more adventures on Semester at Sea from climbing Table Mountain in South Africa, to riding camels in the Sahara Desert in Morocco. Not only did they have amazing adventures all around the world, they also had fun spending time together just talking and falling more in love. Then the hard part came, where they would have to face a coast-to-coast long-distance relationship for the last year of college. They loved each other so much though that through countless hours on Facetime, Snapchat, and Jack losing to Megan at “Words With Friends” they grew even stronger as a couple. Jack visited Connecticut and met Megan’s family and had Dunkin Donuts for the first time, and Megan visited California, met Jack’s family and had her first In-n-Out burger! Then they got the opportunity to work together and travel the world managing science conferences, which brought them to Ventura, California, Hong Kong, and Les Diablerets, Switzerland. It was clear that they were soul mates and Jack was excited to spend the rest of his life adventuring with Megan, and on July 12th 2019 Jack proposed in Gruyere, Switzerland while taking the chocolate train tour, and Megan said yes!

Jack bought Megan’s two-piece engagement ring in March hoping that it would arrive before they moved to Switzerland for work in May. Half of it did. The second half arrived the day after they left. Fortunately, Jack’s sister Mary was coming to visit in a couple weeks and could bring the other half. Jack carried the ring around Switzerland, Paris, and Germany, hidden in his backpack waiting for the perfect opportunity to propose. The Eiffel tower was too early in the morning, and Disneyland Paris was too crowded. While in Germany at Europa Park, Megan made a joke about getting married on the bench they were sat at, and Jack was quite tempted to propose there, but decided to wait a little longer for a more perfect moment. Towards the end of their time in Switzerland, Megan scheduled a trip on the Chocolate Train that went through Montreux, and Gruyere with stops at the Chateau de Gruyere and the Callier chocolate factory. While visiting the Chateau, near an open field Jack proposed to Megan and she said yes! They then celebrated by touring and eating chocolate at the Callier factory and getting drinks by the water in Montreux. The proposal embodied the adventurous spirit of Jack and Megan’s relationship, and was a beautiful moment in their love story.