We're getting married!

We met through our best man, Evan. I was friends with him from high school marching band. Andrew and Evan were randomly assigned to be roommates their freshman year at Bradley University, and they ended up becoming the best of friends and lived together all through college. Evan and I remained friends through college, so Andrew would take Evan's phone and snapchat me with captions like "my soulmate" and "the love of my life" despite the fact that we had never met in real life. This persisted on and off for about 6 years. I'm glad I thought this was funny and not weird. Fast forward to summer 2017, Andrew finally got up the courage to send me a snapchat asking for my phone number. After a few weeks of getting to know each other better, Andrew made the trip from Peoria to St. Louis and we went on our first date to The Great Forest Park Balloon Race, where Andrew spent most of the date nervously explaining to me why he dislikes hot air balloons. After the balloon race, we played games at Pieces board game bar, where Andrew unsurprisingly dominated at Trivial Pursuit but sucked at Scattergories. We bonded over our mutual love for board games, competition, and hanging out with each other. For the next year, we alternated traveling to see each other on the weekends. In late 2018, I moved to Chicago to go back to school and Andrew got a promotion and joined me in Chicago a few months later. The rest is history.

A few months after we moved in together, Andrew suggested we go shopping for engagement rings. I was obviously thrilled, we picked out my dream ring and Andrew promised the proposal would still be a surprise. I spent the next several months with my nails perfectly manicured just in case. One unsuspecting Friday in October, I walked to Fox in a Box escape room in Chicago to meet Andrew for date night after work. Despite going to get a manicure with my best friend and maid of honor a few days before, I was not expecting anything. Andrew had worked with the escape room to hide clues throughout the room, which was themed "The Bank" and featured a giant diamond at the end. We hadn't done an escape room just the two of us before, so I was super focused and excited about the challenge. So much so that I didn't notice the that there were extra clues which spelled out "Will you marry me?" until the very end of the room, and when we put it together, I was still convinced it was part of the puzzle to solve the room. Andrew got down on one knee, I realized what was happening and screamed. Music started playing and the doors opened to reveal our family and best friends outside in the hallway. Still in shock a year later and can't wait to finally celebrate together!