Our story starts with friendship and a one-sided crush. Megan was a sophomore in college when she saw a picture of Michael for the first time posted in the Evans Scholar hallway alongside the other incoming Evans Scholar freshmen. She immediately thought he was super cute and was excited to meet him the next year. Freshman Michael came into the house and he had a completely different idea. Michael was set on having fun with the boys, partying and not having a girlfriend. Megan continued to crush on Michael from a far, but she could tell he was not ready for a relationship and neither was she. During that time, Michael and Megan spent a lot of time together building their friendship which was mostly based on tailgating and working on the partying-studying balance that exists at UW-Madison. Mostly, the two of them just had a great time enjoying each other's company. It was really effortless and fun.

Megan had studied aboard in Barcelona, Spain, during her Spring semester of 2013. After being gone for a semester, she arrived to the Evans Scholar house in Fall of 2013. Michael was the first person she saw walking on the sidewalk and Michael approached Megan with a big hug and smile asking about how her time was abroad. They both spent time catching up and talking about how excited they were to be back. Even after a summer abroad in Spain, Megan still had a crush on Michael. She was really flirty when she got home and spent a lot of time with him, but Michael was not great at picking up the clues she was throwing his way. After a couple of months, Megan gave up on pursuing Michael and decided that they would just be friends. In typical form, Michael started to notice that Megan had stopped paying him so much attention. Michael realized that he missed Megan hanging out with him and flirting with him all the time. So he started to go to Megan instead of Megan coming to him all the time. Megan was enjoying this new found attention! Throughout the rest of the Fall semester, Michael and Megan hung out a lot and their friendship and flirtation really started to bloom.

Megan and Shannon (Megan's friend) had made plans to go to Panama City Beach with Michael and Zander (Michael's friend) during Spring Break. The four of them started to spend a lot of time together since our trip was coming up. Megan and Shannon had been talking to the guys about Valentine's Day and how we were looking forward to being spoiled some day on Valentine's Day. Megan and Shannon walked into Megan's room on Valentine's Day and there were rose petals on the floor, candles lit, music playing, chocolate candies on the bed, and a teddy bear. It was that moment that Megan realized that Michael was into her more than she thought. After that, Michael and Megan were pretty inseparable. They would go to the library together, go out to eat together, party together, watch TV together, etc. One day Michael finally told his roommates that he had a crush on Megan. They answered with "Yeah man, we kind of figured that out."

There is a whole lot of story after the friendship, flirtation and turning point and in between our engagement and wedding. I'm sure you'll hear more about it at the wedding, but below are some highlights. - Long-distance relationship from Milwaukee to Minneapolis for 1.5 years. This is our least favorite drive because we have made it SO MANY TIMES. - Moved into our first apartment together in NE Minneapolis in March of 2018. - First transatlantic trip to London and Croatia in 2019! - Bought our first house in July 2019. - Celebrated new jobs and promotions in between all these big events. - Our engagement in Dubai in October 2020!

After Megan showed Michael her love of travel and Michael joining on countless adventures, he knew he wanted to propose on the next international trip they had. The original plan was to go to Thailand and Singapore, but the pandemic put a damper on those plans. Michael and Megan decided to go to Dubai because it was on their combined bucket list (which is a very rigorous system) and the price of the flights were right! Michael waited a few days after landing in Dubai to propose to Megan while she was becoming increasingly impatient, because if he wasn't going to propose in Dubai, where was he going to propose?! Ultimately, Megan was able to calm down and enjoy the moment and that's when the moment happened. Michael proposed in the middle of the Arabian Desert after promising to continue to check off bucket list items together forever. How could Megan say no to that?! If you want to read more about the engagement, the company that made it all possible, Thrifty Traveler, wrote an article about our trip and engagement! Feel free to check it out here: https://thriftytraveler.com/news/cheap-flights-to-dubai/

If you read all that, thank you for reading and taking part of our love story! By the time we get married in Cancun on June 11, 2022, we will be together one week shy of 8 years! Time has absolutely flown by and we feel so lucky to have loved each other for 8 years already. We feel so honored for those of you that are joining us to celebrate our love in Cancun and joining us in our love for travel! Please continue to check back on our website for updates along the way!