Our story begins at The University of Kansas, where we met in a campus ministry called the Navigators. We met in 2017 but didn’t really become friends until 2019 when we bonded over some music. We went on a few dates near the end of 2019, and in January of 2020 we decided we were officially dating. Now, if you check your calendar, you’ll note that means we only dated for two months before the COVID shutdown. This means we went on a lot of walks together and enjoyed frequent picnics in a park. In June of 2020 we decided to paint a birdhouse for one of our friends, and we secretly placed it in a tree in their yard to surprise them. (We put our initials on the bottom so they would know it was from us). However, after a week went by and we hadn’t heard anything from them, we decided to paint and plant another one. This got their attention and they realized what we had done. We enjoyed doing it so much that we decided to make it our hobby. We’ve painted birdhouses for many of our friends and family and secretly placed them in their trees – a friendly ding-dong ditch.

Along with birdhouses, we also love bridges. On one of our walks in a park together we crossed a bridge, which started a new tradition of kissing on bridges. (This only applies to bridges we walk across together, no driving bridges #safetyfirst). On January 22nd, 2022, we went on a walk together through a park we had walked through many times. We like this park because of its many bridges. It was an unusually warm day for a January, so it was not strange that Sarah suggested this walk. Little did she know that Brian was already planning on going on a walk that day. As we strolled onto the first bridge, Brian gestured out along the railing about how nice of a day it was; Sarah, however, did not notice the little ceramic birdhouse sitting on the rail. So Brian picked it up and mentioned how cute it was, which is when Sarah noticed that it had a clasp to open. So, Sarah, thinking it was part of some kids’ scavenger hunt decided she wanted to open the birdhouse to read the clue inside. However, there wasn’t a clue inside, instead a simple question asking Sarah to marry Brian. She turned around and saw him kneeling on their kissing bridge with a ring, asking her to marry him. And of course she said yes.