We're so excited to celebrate with you!

Ben & Lisa met each other when they were in high school - he was a freshman and she was a junior. They met through drama - Ben liked to act & work on the construction crew, and Lisa liked to student-direct and sing. We shared (and still do!) a lot of the same great friends from back then.

What you'd consider our first date would vary depending on which one of us you ask (Ben would say it was earlier, Lisa would say she didn't know it was a date and not a friend hangout until the night we first kissed). Either way, it was during Ben's winter break from school in 2018-2019. We'd been friends for such a long time (it'll be a decade by the time the wedding comes!), but at that point we knew we were meant to be more than that. We've been happily together every since.

We got engaged the same weekend after Ben finished up his master's degree & moved back to Champaign. He texted Lisa's parents to get their blessing a few weeks before, which they happily gave. He decided to propose at Allerton in the peony garden - an absolute favorite place of Lisa's. He invited both of our families and two of Lisa's closest friends, Libby & Maddie, out to be there when it happened and celebrate with us. We went out there under the guise of taking Lisa's dog, Avalanche, for a walk which we'd done many times before. We turned into the peony garden, he got down on one knee and proposed, at which point Lisa took off her mask and said "yes! of course!" We then took pictures, popped champagne (thank you Libby!), and hung out there at the park with our immediate families & friends. It was a perfect day.