On Sunday, Jan 25th, 2015 Matt walked into the Holy Family Hall in Fond du Lac for the parish's winter festival. It was lunchtime and he wanted to meet more young adults (YA) in the parish. It had been a year since he had moved to Fond du Lac and he was looking to be more active in his faith life. Matt was introduced to a table of young adults, including Katie. Katie had officially started her first job out of school at Shepherd of the Hills as their Director of Religious Education. She had been active at Holy Family in YA groups but the church work/ church life balance was becoming more difficult. The 2015 Holy Family Winter Festival would be the last parish event Katie would attend in Fond du Lac until 2017. Matt became active in the YA group (the one Katie had just chosen to leave) and attended on a regular basis. He remembered meeting Katie and thinking about how pretty she was. Because of the overlap in friends in the YA group, Katie's face began showing up under suggested friends on Facebook. Matt asked a mutual friend who this Katie was and why they had so many mutual friends. Anna knew more about Katie's situation than Matt did so she answered, "Oh, that's Katie B!" and left it at that. Feeling frustrated that he didn't get a straight answer, Matt continued to watch Katie from across church every 10:15 Sunday Mass. What Matt didn't know was that Katie at the time was dating someone that was discerning the priesthood and who would eventually leave for the seminary. Katie comfortably retreated to a work- then home routine until 2017 when Matt finally reintroduced himself after Mass one morning and invited Katie to a game night at his house with many people from the YA group. Katie kept going to game nights at Matt's house until Fall of 2017 when Matt asked Katie to go to an escape room with him.

Katie agreed to the escape room, but unbeknown to Matt at the time, Katie became tepid towards the plan when she realized it would be just the two of them. Alone. On a date. She was too polite to rescind her agreement, so they picked a day and time, and agreed to meet at the escape room in Appleton. Matt had somehow (to almost no one’s surprise if you know him) converted the 11am escape room time to him needing to leave Fond du Lac at 11. Find out that Matt would an hour late, Katie decided to join a group of women having a friends reunion of sorts in their escape room adventure. Matt, meanwhile, called a florist and asked for a bouquet that says "I’m sorry I’m late for a first date." After a short drive and florist guilt trip, Matt arrived at the escape room where he sat in the lobby flowers in hand, tail between his legs. A short while later, an escape room let out, and he heard only women’s voices. Matt realized this must be Katie’s group and decided to wait patiently for her to enter the lobby. As it turns out, Katie had filled the women in on the situation, and they knew he was late. After the group finished taking their photo, they walked into the lobby past Matt. One by one, each woman let out an “awwww!” as they saw the clearly embarrassed and ashamed Matt holding a bouquet of flowers. Katie had pity on Matt and agreed to walk to a little café for tea and coffee. Even though they talked for more than an hour, it would be over a year until their second date. Katie wasn't ready to date at the time. After dinner for her birthday in 2018, a Badger volleyball game, a Packers vs Bears game, and many trips for ice cream, Katie and Matt officially began dating on September 23, 2018.

Ever since they began dating, Matt has wanted redemption for that, though memorable, debacle of a first date. After returning from a vacation to watch Matt and his brother run marathons in Missouri and Kansas, Katie was asked to join Matt for another escape room adventure…this time in Green Bay. She laughed and, after agreeing to his plan, found Matt to be punctual this time. They found the code and escaped their Escape Room room with 5 minutes remaining. To celebrate, Matt and Katie drove to Cold Stone Creamery a couple blocks from Lambeau Field. Since it was just about a year after Matt had taken Katie to the 2018 Packers vs Bears game, Matt asked if she wanted to walk around the Title Town District across from Lambeau Field. She agreed on the condition they hike the sledding hill that they didn’t have time to visit the previous year before the Packers/ Bears game. At the top of the hill Matt and Katie viewed Lambeau from under the light of a full moon while watching teens try to throw and shove each other down the hill. Not wanting an audience, Matt waited for the hill to clear before asking Katie her favorite part of the Packers game from the 2018 game. After listening to her answer, Matt told her his favorite memory: the walk to the car after the game. It was on that walk when (even before they were officially dating) Matt thought Katie was the one he would marry. Never having heard this story before, Katie, with a surprised look, gave Matt a kiss and a long hug. After a few moments Matt pulled back, removed the ring from his pocket, knelt down and said these seven words, “Katherine Mary Boehm, will you marry me?” Katie, caught off guard and with tears in her eyes, could only quickly nod her head a few times before they kissed and hugged again. It would be a few more moments before Katie could speak the sweetest word in the world: “Yes!”.