It was a little after Midnight, January 1, 2024 at "Saddle Up" - a line dancing bar in Aurora, IL. We had just rung in the new year with our individual groups of friends and had made our way back to the dance floor for more line dancing. "Country Girl Shake It" by Luke Bryan was playing, we were shaking our booties on the dance floor unknowingly next to each other when Larisa turned the wrong direction and ran straight into Sean's chest. Yes. Like a Hallmark movie. Larisa's immediate thought: "Oh S**t, he's cute!" Sean just smiled and in his gentlemany fashion guided her through the rest of the dance (even though she did in fact know the dance) and another dance or two with a little flirting, before Sean wandered off the dance floor not saying a word and disappearing back into the crowd. Larisa was a little bummed that he hadn't said anything, assumed he wasn't interested, and left the dance floor to join her friends. A few songs later, Sean re-appeared on the dance floor in the same area that they had first danced. He asked Larisa to dance and she took him literally, proceeding to try and slow dance with him, but Sean had meant he'd teach her the line dance to the song playing - but he rolled with it anyway. We started chatting while dancing, which led to more chatting (mostly about Ohio State Football and Bison at his work) and flirting while standing on the dance floor, which lead to exchanging numbers. The following day, after texting for a few hours, Sean asked "What would it take to convince a Buckeye fan to go out with me?"

We set up our first date for January 6, 2024 at Cooper's Hawk in Naperville, IL. We continued to chat via text the entire week, however Thursday night before we were set to go on our date, Larisa started to worry - she'd met him at a bar - he's not a detailed texter so she didn't know much about him – was she crazy for doing this!? Larisa was chatting with one of her friends, sharing her concerns (despite the fact that she knew Sean worked for a government agency whom had done a background check - so he couldn't have been THAT bad of a person) when her friend convinced her to go out on the date, stating "what's the worst that could happen? you get a free dinner!" Fast forward 24 hours, and we had our first date at Cooper's Hawk. After almost 2 hours at dinner, we decided it wasn't enough time and we wanted to continue the date. Sean suggested going to a bar with billiards to play pool, so they agreed to go to a bar near Larisa's apartment. Upon arriving at the bar, it turned out that there was a tournament going on and no tables were available. But neither of us wanted to end our evening so we found a different one nearby (unbeknownst to us owned by the same management as Saddle Up). After multiple rounds of pool where Larisa (almost) beat Sean (beginner's luck he claims...) multiple times, we left the bar to find almost 2 inches of snow on the ground! We shared a snowy kiss and Sean was cleaning off Larisa's car when his phone began to ring - he had been called in to work for snow removal. Sean had to leave immediately and showed up to work wearing the clothes he had worn on the date, having to explain this to his co-workers why he wasn’t dressed for work. Sean got called in for snow removal the first 3 dates we went on, and Sean's co-workers joked that he needed to stop going out on dates with the "snow queen." Since then, we have been dancing through life together sharing laughs, building memories, and falling deeper in love with each other.

On October 26, 2025, we went for a hike at Starved Rock in Oglesby, IL with Mila to look at the fall colors. We enjoyed walking along the river, exploring the canyons, and admiring the beautiful, warm, sunny fall day. Sean did not want a very public proposal and knew that normally people were well spread out among the trails so he thought it would be the perfect place to propose… Except this day in particular there were people EVERYWHERE and all the spots Sean had wanted to propose were filled with people. We had climbed our fair share of steps by the time we had reached what is called "The Stairway to Heaven", a stairwell (with an excessive amount of steps) up the canyon which would lead us to the trail that would take us back to the parking lot. As we peaked up the top of the steps, we came upon the most beautiful bunch of trees in bright yellow with the sun shining through them making the leaves even shine brighter and happy. We stopped to take some pictures when another hiker offered to take our photos. She took our photos, and Larisa went to retrieve her phone. Sean had squatted down to pet on Mila as Larisa was walking back, scrolling through the photos to find the best one to show Sean. Instead of standing up when Larisa approached, Sean proceeded to kneel onto one knee, pulled the ring from his pocket, and asked Larisa to marry him. Larisa of course said "YES!" Mila of course also had to inspect the ring, approved, and said "yes" too by giving him a "Mila hug." And now we look forward to sharing our Wedding Day with you on August 29, 2026!