After a series of what each of them thought were unfortunate events, they both ended up interning at a manufacturing plant in Freeport, TX. John had to call Natalie before she accepted the offer to convince her that Texas was not as bad as she thought. They hit it off almost immediately after Natalie started in June of 2018. John remembers coming home after her first day and asking his sister-in-law if he was allowed to hit on the new girl at work. And Natalie had written in her journal that she “could marry a man like John”. Roughly one month later, John asked her to go to a Texas country concert, even after she said she liked every kind of music BESIDES country. John’s internship ended in August, and he went back to College Station to finish up his last semester. Natalie’s internship went until December and she made that ~3 hour drive to College Station almost every weekend that fall semester to visit John. Texas (and John) were definitely growing on Natalie. He graduated that December and had landed a job for ExxonMobil in Beaumont, TX starting in January 2019.

After Natalie’s internship ended in December 2018, she headed back home to Wisconsin to finish her last year of school. They both swore to each other that they’d see each other again. And as Natalie drove to the airport for her flight home, John was booking flights to visit her the following month. They survived one full year of 1000+ miles of distance, only seeing each other one or two times every three months! And Natalie did everything she could to get a job in Houston after her graduation in December of 2019. She ended up also landing a job at ExxonMobil in a different division than John in Spring, TX. She made the cross country move (for a second time) in February 2020 to Houston, TX. Even though she had moved to Texas to be by him, they were still living 1+ hour away since he was living in Beaumont. Since she moved, they managed to see each other almost every weekend, mostly him coming to Houston. The distance finally ended for good when John moved into Natalie’s Houston apartment in March 2022.

They were back in Wisconsin for a friend’s wedding on Natalie’s 25th birthday. She still wanted to celebrate her quarter century birthday in a special way, so she planned a birthday party for herself at her lake house on Big Cedar Lake the day after her birthday. She invited her close family and friends and convinced Adam and Taylor (and babies) to drive up from Illinois to celebrate. She was suspicious that the proposal might happen this day because it honestly was a prime opportunity. A meaningful place AND Natalie’s closest people. Natalie knew her suspicions were right when John pulled her to the side and said he had another birthday gift to give her. Natalie shot looks back to her family to see if anyone was videoing or taking pictures because she knew she was about to say the biggest “yes” of her life. Sure enough, after explaining that he had planned on asking her to marry him since the day she drove out of his parents driveway in December 2018 after her internship ended, he got down on one knee and opened the ring box. They were both crying at this point and she gave a resounding “yes” and gave him a giant hug before putting on the ring. Natalie had been having nightmares that he picked an ugly ring, but he proved her extremely wrong because it was the exact ring she had wanted and was even more gorgeous than she could have imagined. John did the big ask before most of the guests arrived because he said he was extremely nervous and did not want a big audience. The “glowing” couple was able to celebrate with the rest of the guests once they arrived and even enjoyed Natalie’s favorite cake, grandma cake!

In the ~4.5 years they have been together they have made each other better people! Natalie has introduced John to three of his favorite hobbies: golfing, skiing, and biking. In that 4.5 years, John has played more than 250 rounds of golf, learned to ski and gone on four ski trips out west (got on blacks his second time skiing!!), and biked over 500 miles! They love spending time together, but specifically love being active together in nature. They go on a yearly hiking and golf trip! They are super excited to celebrate their big day with their favorite people!