We met at a bar in downtown Madison. My sister and I were out having a girls night and Mike and his friend were out playing pool. Mike's friend, Aiden, decided to approach us and asked about our nachos that we were eating. While talking with Aiden, we discussed our careers. At one point during our conversation, Mike interjected and challenged the accuracy of something I said. In spite of that, we talked on and off the rest of the night and decided to exchange numbers. We went on a date the next day and the rest is history.

There is a backstory to this --- With it being the 4th of July holiday, we had plans to meet with my coworker to go to a festival. While talking with her, I told her that Mike wanted to go to a firework show first before going to the festival. She said to me "He wants to see fireworks? Jess, he's going to propose tonight." I completely dismissed it and told her it wasn't going to happen that night. Fast forward to later that night --- We decided to go to a firework show that was in a small town 45 minutes from Madison. We got sandwiches and decided to go to a local park to eat and enjoy the nice weather. While sitting with Mike in the park, I said to him "you know what my coworker said?" And then I proceeded to tell the story and even patted down his pockets to feel for a ring - I didn't feel one in his pocket, so I dismissed the idea of him proposing and we moved on with the rest of our night. As night fell, the bugs were starting to get worse, so we moved to our car to sit and watch the firework show. While sitting in the car, we could hear the fireworks, but couldn't see them, so we moved from the park to a side street where we could see them. As we were sitting and watching the fireworks from our car, Mike turned to me and said "you didn't pat down my pockets hard enough" and pulled the ring box from his pocket. He then got out of the car, walked around to the passenger side, and got down on one knee. It was absolutely perfect. His proposal didn't go at all as he had planned, but I wouldn't have had it any other way.