Our crazy journey to find each other started in Duluth, MN back in 2019. Our worlds collided into one at the beginning of my sophomore year at UMD, and Bens first year at Lake Superior College. Ben went guns a blazin for our very first date together at the end of September, where he paid for a 15 minute thriller helicopter ride around the city of Duluth (the doors were off of the helicopter). From here he took me to a restaurant called Cloud9 down in Canal Park where he showed me his LOVE for sushi and where mine began. The conversation flowed easily and I knew in that moment I couldn’t wait to see what was in store for the relationship between the two of us. After dinner, Ben took me to Enger tower, which is where you can see the whole city of Duluth below and get an amazing view of Canal Park. Youll see the connection later and why Duluth has such a big part in our relationship.


Ben claims he had me hook line and sinker even before the helicopter ride...... haha, we will let him believe this ;) Next thing I knew it was a chilly day in October and we had been enjoying our time together when he took me out to Park Point and as we were watching the lake at sunset he asked me to be his girlfriend. I know I know all of you are thinking how lucky I am that this man is so romantic but trust me you don’t live with him (hehe love you babe).


From here, we made countless memories from meeting each others families, to taking several trips up the North Shore, to the amount of sushi I have consumed over the course of our relationship, and to our trip to North Carolina where we had our first out of state travel experience on a plane. I bet you can guess who was the one that wanted to be at the airport 4 hours early ;) These are just some of the adventures we have done over the course of our relationship and I can only imagine what we will do in the future.


All of this leads up to one of the most exciting days of our relationship.... the day Ben proposed.


Ben took the initiative to plan an anniversary trip to Duluth over our 4th anniversary (October 9-11th). I had just started my new job at 3M and Ben was adjusting to his new life as a full time fire inspector for the city of Chaska. We drove up to Duluth and stayed at the Salyards Mansion (private bed and breakfast) where we had the private Lake Superior Room located in the carriage house of the Mansion. When we walked in, there was a boquet of flowers (they were gorgeous) and a bottle of Champagne. We enjoyed the rest of our night and got food at one of our favorite restaurants OMC.


The next day he had breakfast delivered to our room, in which we enjoyed and then got ready for the day. Once ready we went and had sushi at Hanabi because it was our monthly anniversary and our 4 year so of course this happened. Then we went to Glensheen Mansion and did a tour (I had never been) where we laughed and joked like we normally do. Next, he took me to my next surprise which was a 60 minute romantic helicopter ride over Duluth and the surrounding cities while we sipped on more champagne and ate more truffles. After this, Ben claimed his eye was bugging him so we stopped at Target so I could get him eye drops, but while I was in the store he was texting our photographer, Rachel Longstreet, and sticking the ring box in his pocket. The next stop he wanted to be a surprise, but once he put in the location Siri came over his car and said we were heading to Enger, which is how we ended our very first date.


At this point I wasn’t thinking much of it and was just glad I got to spend more time with Ben and recreate such good memories we have together. Once at Enger, we ran into an old friend from my highschool that I haven’t seen in forever and I could tell at this point Ben was getting kind of anxious. After he pulled me away, and brought me to the same spot in the picture above, he took my phone from my hand and started to take my promise ring off my finger. This was the point where I started balling and Ben got down on one knee to ask me to marry him and spend the rest of my life with him, which I happily said yes!


From here Rachel popped out of the shrubs and everyone that was around was cheering. We took some engagement pictures after and I couldn’t stop looking at my ring, I mean can you blame a girl!! After all the excitement we called our parents to share the news (of course over facetime), and then we were able to enjoy our lovely reservation at Va Bene (definitely recommend going here, best pasta EVER). After dinner we went back to our private room and there was more champagne, truffles and a single red rose (see the reference😉, also soooo much champagne).


Then began the wedding planning process and why hopefully most of you came to our website to look at information about our special day. I hope you enjoyed reading about our journey to finding each other and how I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with my best friend.