Short story: We met through a coworker Long story: In July 2019, Natalie was working as a trainee at Quad and a group of her coworkers decided to go on a boat downtown Milwaukee for a Happy Hour Cruise. One of her coworkers brought Cal - Mike's best friend - to the boat cruise. Cal didn't want to be the only non-Quad person there, so he invited Mike (who's always down for spontaneous things). When the group arrived to the boat dock, they found out the draw bridge was stuck and they couldn't go on the boat. Instead, they decided to eat and get drinks along the river, which is when Natalie was bold and started talking to Mike. However, no contact info was exchanged that night... A month later, Natalie was celebrating a going away party as she was moving to South Carolina for work and her coworker was celebrating their birthday, so they went out on the town again! That coworker brought Cal and Cal brought Mike. This night, Mike got Natalie's number. The next day they started chatting. Mike was aware that two days later, Natalie was moving out of state, but they kept getting to know each other over texts and nightly facetime calls. After a month of talking, they decided to meet in Nashville, which was nearly halfway between the two. There they had their first date at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and got to explore music city. After talking for another month, Natalie flew home for a work event. They went on an official "first date" to the Milwaukee Zoo and out to dinner. Mike asked her to officially be his girlfriend. The following month, Mike traveled to South Carolina to see Natalie. The next month, she came home for a visit, and they managed to see each other at least once a month while she was down south. Natalie moved home in early 2020 and the two were able to see each other more often and their love grew.

Mike planned a trip to Lake Geneva in August 2024. He told her they were going to a fancy restaurant for dinner and then would go shopping and on the boat the next day. When they got to The Abbey Resort, Natalie told Mike she would wait in the car while he checked in. When he got back, he told her, "they said we won some mini photo session with a photographer that works at the hotel...". Natalie told him she was very suspicious, until Mike showed her an email from The Abbey explaining that we won (the photographer Mike hired is friends with an Abbey employee, so he got them to send the email). Shortly after they checked in, the photographer called and we set up a time and place to meet. Luckily she had brought nice clothes for their dinner so she was excited to get some nice photos together that next day. The morning of the photo session, Mike barely ate breakfast since he was so nervous and they walked around Fontana for an hour until the photos... With the ring in his pocket! They met the photographer got nice photos together and then Mike popped the question and she said Yes! Natalie says she saw it coming, but was actually surprised.