It’s FINALLY happening & we're so excited to celebrate with you!

I “met” Taylor in Statistics class during fall of our sophomore year; I heard her name called on the first day of class and immediately had a crush on her. She had no idea I was even in the class - she sat in the back row with the cool kids and I was up front (nerd alert). Being that we both took most of our classes in the business building, eventually, through mutual friends, we would study with the same group of people and Tay finally knew who I was. Then one fateful evening in the winter, we were both attending an off-campus event, when St. Peter’s finest decided it was time for everyone to leave. Tay and I happened to be right next to each other when it was time to leave and she grabbed my arm so I could safely escort her out. We were both a little hungry, so we walked to the Subway around the corner. I guess this was technically our first date, and also when I discovered Taylor’s one true love - a footlong cold cut combo with SunChips and a fountain Sprite. After that night, I got her number and pestered her for the next seven months trying to get her to like me. Taylor can be slightly stubborn at times, so you can imagine the lengths I had to go to in order to convince her I was worthy of her time. It seemed like fate that for our junior year, we ended up living above/below each other in a small group of on-campus apartments; that’s where we really hit it off and by October 14, 2012 we were officially dating!

As most of you know, Andrew & I have been dating since Oct. 2012; what you might NOT know, is that we would have been married 3 yrs. ago if we followed his timeline. So this was quite the opposite of the cliche “girl waiting on the guy who’s dragging his feet” scenario! And I will be the first to admit that I gave Andrew a lot of expectations surrounding his eventual proposal, but boy did he deliver! It was fall 2019 & I had suggested we go visit Gustavus for a day, so we picked a weekend in early Oct. Unbeknownst to me, Andrew had already asked my parents for their blessing & had the ring! He knew that I wanted the proposal to be a surprise, but that I don’t like surprises/am somewhat hard to surprise (makin’ it reaaaal easy for him…); so since I had been the one to suggest the date day, he knew that would be the perfect place to propose. We had planned for Saturday, but after looking at the forecast, it was going to be cloudy & possibly rainy - so I switched our date to Sunday; but then I backtracked & said we should keep it as Sat.; and then finally I switched it to Sun. again (this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, since indecisive is my middle name). Well, Andrew had asked my mom & sister to be there to take pictures of the proposal; so every time I changed my mind, poor Andrew had to text my family to let them know plans had changed - AGAIN. He even used his work phone & changed my mom & sister’s names to Tina & Vivienne, so that I wouldn’t see him texting Kate & Haley & get suspicious (he really covered his bases)!

As the day got closer, I started to feel like this could be it - this could be when he proposes; but I didn’t have anything concrete to support that feeling. Did that stop me from going out & buying a cute new sweater just in case? Absolutely not! When he told me the week of that he had our whole day planned out, I got a little excited; then I remembered that he loves being a tour guide for people, so I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Then, the Tues. before, my sister sent me a snapchat of a nail salon gift card & asked if I wanted to come with her later that week to get our nails done; she said she got it as a gift from a work vendor & didn’t want to go alone. Now this wasn’t out of the ordinary - she gets wined & dined from her work vendors all the time (Wild games, suites at the Twins game, alcohol sent to her apt.) - but the moment I saw the snap, my heart started racing & I had a pretty good feeling that it was officially happening! However, I didn’t mention it to anyone - not my sister, not my best friend - because I didn’t want to jinx anything. So I played it totally cool at our nail appt. (which was all Andrew’s idea/doing) and over the next couple days, but inside, I was so giddy! So Sunday rolled around & Andrew subtly made sure that I was dressed cute by saying we were going to take selfies in front of the sign - for all you non-Gusties, the main entrance to campus has a giant Gustavus Adolphus College sign right at the front & it’s a long-standing tradition to take “sign pics.” Our first stop when we got to St. Peter was obviously Patty’s, the main college bar, to get some burgers & buff chips. Unfortunately, the service was terrible & it took way too long to get our food, but Andrew reassured me we’d still have time to fit in our whole “campus tour.” Meanwhile, he’s secretly texting my family that we’re running behind schedule, because they were already there, waiting for word from Andrew to get into position to take photos.

We finally get to campus & start to walk around, soaking in all the memories. As we’re approaching Complex (our sophomore year dorm), he stops & hands me a note that he had written, talking about how this is where it all began, where he started to have a crush on me. We walked around the rest of campus, looking at our old classrooms, the Dive, the gym - and he ended up giving me five more notes (I’ll spare you the rest of the sappy details & inside jokes), each time at a place that was of significance to us. As we were approaching our final stop (the sign), I popped into the bathroom to fix my hair & calm my nerves. Apparently while I did this, Andrew got the ring ready. All day he had the ring wrapped in a kleenex, inside a small ear plug container because the ring box would have been too bulky in his pockets; so while I was gone, he took the ring out & put it straight in his pocket (still makes me nervous just thinking about it). Also, by this time, my mom & sister had been sitting in the bushes for 45+ min., because they wanted to make sure they were hidden before we got close to the sign (it’s a good thing the two random kids who stopped to ask my sister if she was okay did so before we got there). We walk down to the sign & he tells me he has one last note for me, but asks if he can have a hug first (this was the cue for my mom & sister to start taking pictures); as we’re hugging, I saw a little head (my mom) & a camera pop up out of the bushes on the other side of the street. Andrew then tells me there actually isn’t another note, but instead, gets down on one knee & asks me to marry him! Afterwards, he couldn’t remember if he actually asked me & I couldn’t remember if I actually answered him out loud, but it didn’t matter because we were finally engaged!!