We're getting married!

Jake and Jordan met online through a dating app called Hinge. They decided to meet in person for a first date which took place on January 14th, 2019. They met at Red Robin with plans for just a dinner and a movie when little did they know, their first date would not end there. As they walked out of the movie theater, they did the awkward slow walk away from each other trying to figure out who was going to make the first move when Jake said, “I kind of don’t want this night to end” and Jordan replied, “Me either”. To which Jake asked, “Do you want to go get coffee somewhere?” which then Jordan reminded him, “It’s like 10 pm, where are we going to get coffee?”. Jake then suggested Denny’s and before they knew it, it was 5 am and they were still sitting in the booth eating pancakes and drinking coffee. When people started filing in for breakfast, they realized they had been there long enough so they decided to just drive around and talk until 8 am. They left each other that morning knowing they had met their person.

We were planning on going down to Milwaukee and Chicago for the weekend to have a nice dinner, visit with my grandma, visit my sister, Sam, and go to a pop-up pumpkin festival. Going out to a nice dinner is not out of the ordinary for us so I didn’t think anything of it. We got a late start on Friday driving down to my grandma’s. On the way down, we called her to let her know we were running behind schedule and she mentioned how we should go to the park, Seven Bridges, while we were down in Milwaukee because she had gone the day prior and the colors were so beautiful as they were changing. I told Jake that I would rather do that in the morning because we were already late and had less time to visit with my grandma before our dinner reservations. We pulled up to my grandparents’ house and she came out onto the front porch while we were getting out of the truck and said, “I just threw the snacks in the oven so they won’t be ready for half an hour, why don’t you guys just run to Seven Bridges real quick and when you come back they will be done.” I agreed to go to the park so I started giving Jake directions since I was from South Milwaukee and Jake didn’t have a clue where to go. So we were driving through the parkway and Jake was driving fast and I was like, “Dude, slow down, the point of this is to enjoy the colors, set your cruise to 22.” All the while, Jake was nervous and wanted to get there and knew we were already late. So we pulled up to the entrance to Seven Bridges and we were lucky because we got the last parking spot. There were a bunch of people at this park to also see the colors and walk the paths. There was a man with a camera and in my mind I was like, “Oh, he’s like Bill and likes to take pictures of trees, totally normal to see.” So we walked through the entrance, passed the main bridge, and then I led us on the path I wanted to take. We were holding hands and I mentioned how sweaty his hands were and at the same time I noticed how shaky they were. I jokingly said, “you don’t have a ring in your pocket, do you?” and I proceeded to pat his pants pocket (thank goodness it was in his jacket pocket). We kept walking and Jake just kept asking the weirdest questions ever (which I know now was just to pass the time because he was so nervous). We got to the bridge where we could see Lake Michigan from and Jake tugged me back by my hand he was still holding and right away, his voice began trembling and his whole body was shaking and I started sobbing knowing what was happening. He started it off by saying, “the reason I wanted to do this here was because I knew your parents had their wedding pictures done here so I know this place means a lot to you and I wanted your dad to be a part of it in a way.” Then at the end of his speech, he got down on one knee and said, “I love you very much, will you marry me?” and I said, “yes!” in between all of my tears. Meanwhile the photographer that I thought was just a guy taking pictures of the scenery was actually there to capture the proposal! Bystanders clapped and said “congratulations” as the photographer snapped away. Turns out that everyone was in on this plan. We got in the truck and called my mom and sisters on a group video chat and I screamed, “I’m engaged!!!!” and they all started crying and then I cried even harder. Then we drove back to my grandma’s and she gave me a big hug and had made us a turtle cheesecake that had “I do” on top and there was also a bottle of sparkling moscato sent from my mom. We ended up going to our dinner (Jake made the reservation for later than he told me) and just like that, we were celebrating our engagement!