We’re getting married!

The easy way to tell you how we met would be to say we met at a bar. But that's just a little too simple. Maybe we should start with how our moms met 30 years ago in college choir. Their friendship lasted through marriages, moves, and children. And that's where we come in. Before I (Sydnie) met Chris, I actually lived with his mom, LuAnn, in Sioux Falls for a few months after college, before moving in with one of my bridesmaids (shoutout Arielle!). LuAnn and I bonded over our mutual love of Lemondrop martinis and sushi. During our (frequent) dinner dates, she kept me up to date on her sons and mentioned that Chris might be coming to visit soon. At the time I thought nothing of it, but boy, was I wrong. A few months later, LuAnn called me and told me she and Chris were going to grab a beer and I should join them. In true Sydnie fashion, I rounded up my girlfriends and we headed out to meet them. It didn't take long before I knew we were in trouble. Some might say all it took was two tap beers. And the rest is history.

Just after Christmas, we started planning a spring trip to Key West, the place Sydnie has forever said she wanted to get married. That’s when it hits me...if I can get a ring, plan a proposal and get engaged, we can turn this into a wedding planning vacation. Now it was just a matter of determining what, where and how I was going to ask her to marry me. I had a hard time figuring out my best course of action while looking at future schedules and upcoming life events. Then it came to me, my brother and sister-in-law are pregnant and due sometime in late January/early February. I reached out to them and set the plan in motion. I had to dodge Syd's ridiculous investigative skills to ensure she didn’t see the emails with the jeweler, my mom, my sister (a new mother) and our parents to set up the most epic surprise. To add to the excitement, I informed a few of Syd’s friends of my plan and they insisted on being there to surprise her, as well. To give the new family some time to get settled in, we set a date for early March to go for a visit and to meet the new addition to the Peterson family. Syd happened to need to be in Denver for work that week and I also had business travel making the last 2 weeks of stress leading up to the big day a little bit easier. This allowed me to get the ring shipped to Megan, her friends to arrange a ridiculous road trip, and our families to set up a brunch to meet baby Jax. Two days out I couldn’t contain myself. So the easiest way out of it was to frustrate Sydnie to the point of avoidance, let my brothers pester her and me to hurry up to Greeley and ultimately get me to that morning. Saturday morning was not easy and let’s just say little was said up until the big moment. We snuck off to change Jax into a onesie that said "Will you be my auntie? Then tell Uncle Chris yes!" and ultimately asked Sydnie for me. It's a good thing, too, cause I wasn’t going to get the words out. I handed him to Syd and my little buddy took it from there.