As most of us know, Bumble is a dating app that the women have to start the conversation first. Ashlee swiped right on Mike sometime in September of 2021. She wanted to come up with something more clever and entertaining than the usual "Hi" or "Hey." Ashlee had decided that she was going to ask what his favorite pickup line was because if anything, she would get a good laugh out of it. Mike responded with "I'm here, what are your other two wishes?" This not only made Ashlee giggle but also eventually agree to go on a date with Mike. We met at Kirkwood Bar on a Saturday in early October and completely didn't realize that it was in the middle of college football season so, we stood at the bar for 3 hours chatting and having some drinks. Of note, Notre Dame was playing Cincinnati and Ashlee quickly learned one thing Mike is very passionate about. Fast forward two months and some dates later, we started officially dating. Mike patiently waited for Ashlee to give the ok to start dating and she did when they were hanging out and Ashlee looked at Mike and said "would anything change if we started dating?" Mike said "probably not" and Ashlee answered with "ok cool, let's do it." A little over two years later and we are happy to confirm that it did not change anything.

Mike had a very sweet proposal planned for Ashlee that she was completely unaware of and almost ruined it. It was September 2, 2023 and Ashlee and Mike had just gotten back from lunch. Ashlee decided to take a nap and told Mike to wake her up in about an hour. (If you know me, you know my naps never last only an hour). Mike had a plan to propose in the kitchen after waking Ashlee up. Mike tried to wake up Ashlee after an hour and she asked for a little bit more time that he agreed to. So, Mike called Ashlee's name multiple times from the kitchen and she wouldn't budge. Mike said that at this point, it was cutting into a timeline that he had planned because, also unknown to Ashlee, he had a party planned at O’Donovan’s later that night. So, finally he decided to just wake her up and propose right on the spot. Mike came over and very gently shook her and said "Hey Ash, I have a question" and to that Ashlee said "Um, no you don't." Mike proceeded to ask Ashlee to marry him and Ashlee was speechless to say the least but finally said yes. Fun Fact: Mike planned the proposal on September 2nd because all of our important dates have been on the 2nd of the month (i.e. our first date, and when we started dating)