let's celebrate!

Although growing up fifteen minutes from each other, Grace and Drew first met the summer before Grace started college in 2013. Ending up in similar friend groups, they would hang out quite a bit and run into each other often throughout their time at Iowa State. It wasn't until a few years later that they finally figured out they liked each other, even though all of their friends seemed to have known first. Drew graduated and moved to Ankeny and during Grace's senior year he'd visit quite a bit on the weekends. They became closer and finally started to date in February of 2017.

Grace moved to Cedar Falls in the fall of 2017 to start grad school and not long after Drew moved home as well. After graduation, they moved to Rockford, Illinois to live together for the first time. Then a pandemic hit and they spent so much time together they decided this was forever. They now live in Dubuque and are happy to be closer to home.

In 2015 Grace started a memory jar, collecting items throughout the year to remind her of all the things she did - concert tickets, bar wristbands, wedding invites, etc. When they started dating, that first Christmas Drew wrote a letter of all the things they did that year for Grace to read when she went through her jar. This tradition has continued every year to commemorate the things they've done together. But the 2020 letter ended a little bit differently... they still had one more thing to do that year and Drew popped the question.