We’re getting married!

We separately joined Texas Running Club (TRC) at the University of Texas at Austin during our first year of college. We never saw each other at the weekly runs; Viktoria almost exclusively went to Track Tuesdays while Robbie went on the longer run routes (however, a picture caught the rare occasion Viktoria was at a longer run, and Robbie is standing in the picture on the opposite side). We later realized that we spoke for the first time at a volunteer event with TRC at Austin's Trail of Lights in December 2019. As we were walking over to the water station, a single Viktoria thought Robbie was cute and funny but thought that he probably had a girlfriend. Robbie was single.

The official start of our dating journey began a year and a half later on May 9th, 2021 at the Texas Running Club banquet. Viktoria happened to be the very last person in the buffet line at Hula Hut and the only seat left was at Robbie's table; we did not recognize each other from 2019. Robbie made an effort to include Viktoria in the conversation with everyone, which Viktoria noticed and was grateful for. Later in the evening, everyone except Robbie and Viktoria got up to leave the table, and Robbie struck up a 1:1 conversation. Robbie thought Viktoria was cute, but didn’t want to come on too strong, so he didn’t ask for her number.

A few days later, we attended the TRC barge party on Lake Travis. We sat next to each other on the bus ride there (comical fact: during the ride, the bus driver slammed the brakes, causing Viktoria to fall face-first into Robbie's lap). We didn't talk much on the barge due to comical circumstances outside of our control, but we sat next to each other again on the bus ride back. We couldn't stop talking, and sat across from each other at the post-barge dinner at Cabo Bob's. We talked so much that Robbie's friends noticed and teased him about his obvious crush. After eating burritos, we both attended our mutual friend Ben’s after-party and made an it an inside joke to hide the liquor from Ben (sorry Ben). Viktoria drove people home from the party and Robbie lost a coin toss for the last available seat in her car. If he had won, Robbie was planning on asking for her number, but he ended up walking home by himself instead.

The day after the barge, worried that he might not see Viktoria again until the fall, Robbie took a chance. He followed Viktoria on Instagram and on her post about the barge, slid into her DMs. After DMing for a while and being impressed by Robbie’s jokes, Viktoria gave Robbie her number.

After texting every day for two weeks, we went on our first date. It was clear that this was going to be something special. We had learned so much about each other during those two weeks of texting that we became official 10 minutes in during the walk to Coco's Cafe. At the cafe, Viktoria distractedly placed her keys in the to-go bag, and after eating, Robbie accidentally threw Viktoria's keys in the trash. We were so entranced with each other that neither of us noticed. During our walk around the UT Austin campus, Viktoria suddenly realized she didn’t have her keys, so we went back and dug them out of the trash together. #teamwork

Two weeks after starting to officially date (long-distance!) Robbie drove up to Dallas to see Viktoria and meet her parents. We went rollerskating, visited Viktoria’s high schools, and visited the Dallas Arboretum where, as fate would have it, we witnessed a couple's proposal.

Fast-forward 3.5 years and countless memories together (college graduation, a new job, a master’s program, domestic and international trips, and more) — Robbie visited Viktoria while she was studying abroad in Germany for her final semester of grad school. We took a trip to Stockholm, Sweden, and Robbie proposed! The proposal story: In May while in Washington DC, Viktoria and I decided to go ring shopping. After finding one she liked, I ordered it. Now I just had to worry about the proposal itself… I decided I wanted to do it in Europe when visiting Viktoria, but I wasn’t sure where exactly. After suggesting some “hypothetical situations” to gauge her reaction, I felt like there was never going to be a perfect place. Regensburg (where her Oma was from)? Too obvious. Berlin? Too crowded. Copenhagen? Too “cute and uniform” (not sure what that means). However, my gut quickly settled on one location: Stockholm. Using my interest in Scandinavia, we booked a trip to Sweden for a few days while I was visiting. I had it all figured out: a nice hostel to stay in, the perfect spot (shoutout to Google maps street view), and even a photographer for engagement photos the next day (just in case the proposal pictures didn’t turn out). I boarded a flight to Berlin with the ring hidden in my carryon. After getting too paranoid about losing it, I switched it to my coat pocket and just prayed she couldn’t see the outline. I grew even more nervous once we boarded the sleeper train heading towards Stockholm. I just wanted everything to be perfect. Shortly after we got underway, an announcement was made. Danish rail lines are closed for construction!! After reaching the border with Denmark, we had to disembark the train and hop onto busses which would take us across the country to Malmö in southern Sweden. I was panicking. This change in itinerary added a few hours to our ETA, which was already cutting it close with the autumn sunset being around 4pm! After arriving in Malmö we boarded a train once again and were off to Stockholm. We walked nearly a mile from the train station to our hostel in Gamla Stan (old town), which was no easy feat when you have to drag your suitcase across cobblestone. Exhausted, we made it to the room. I glance at the clock and notice we only have about a half hour of sunlight left. Thanks to our detour, Viktoria was exhausted and wanted to take a nap. I needed an excuse to get her outside without her catching on. I insisted that I really wanted to see the cathedral before it got dark and that we could take a nap after. She finally relented and we headed out the door. We didn’t have enough time (or energy) to walk to the spot I had planned, so thinking on my feet, decided I’d have Viktoria unknowingly pick the spot! I suggested we find a place to take a self-timed photo, and she pointed to a spot by the water. I set up the phone to video record instead of a self timer and got on one knee. This was it. This was the moment. Months of planning and…hold on one sec, I can’t quite get the ring out of my pocket…ok there we go. I knelt there for what felt like a lifetime before, in tears, Viktoria said yes. A nearby couple started clapping and were kind enough to take a few photos of us! The next day we had a photo shoot with a professional photographer (shoutout to Julia for helping me find one) and got to explore the city!