Where do I even start?! From what I can remember and what I was told, I caught Brandon's eye when he saw me on TV doing an appearance for MVC, promoting a game or something. He went to high school with one of my teammates, Kali, so he reached out to her to see what I was all about.

The funny part about that was, Kali and I were actually up in Duluth for an appearance and when we pulled up, she checked her phone and saw a message from Brandon asking about me. She responded with snapping photo of me in that moment with "this Brooklyn?!" HAHA I creeped on his Facebook, thought he was cute, but just blew it off. I remember the appearance being for Grandma's Marathon/all of the races that happen then, so I want to say this was in the summer of 2015.

After that, behind the scenes, Brandon was scheming to get a group together to go to Dave & Buster's or something for an outing that just so happened to include me.

Months passed and that get together never came to fruition. Brandon's became impatient and in my mind he said "f it" and sent me a message on Facebook on January 20, 2016:

Hey Brooklyn, a little different over Facebook but I'm the guy Kali has mentioned. She says you're pretty sarcastic, I might give you a run for your money. Anyway, wanted to say hey and hope we meet up sometime

To which I respond:

Hi! too funny! we'll see about that! yeah definitely!

We exchanged a few more messages and phone numbers and ultimately set up a date to meet up at the Mall of America and go mini golfing that weekend. I was scheduled for my knee surgery to repair my meniscus the following Monday, so if that's what he wanted to do, we needed to make it happen. HOWEVER, the weekend came around and I was anxious beyond belief. I never really dateedddd like this so I didn't know what to expect. Everyone I knew and had ever seen was built into school, or classes, or my sorority outings. I kept trying to talk myself out of it and my roommate at the time just told me to shut up and go. "The worst thing that happens is you have a miserable round of golf, you come home and we go out" HAH

Well, I went and he was late and I thought about just saying screw it and turn around. BUT, he was helping his mom, so how could I stand him up???

We went on this mini-golfing date, then sat in the middle of "Nickelodeon Universe" (we all know it's Camp Snoopy) for hours just talking about life. I remember going back to my sorority house telling EVERYONE I was going to marry this guy and then... The rest is history!

Since then, 6 years later, we've been through long distance, all the baseball trips, dozens of Vikings games, apartments, to our home, our pup, Annie, and more.

When it came time for him to propose, I honestly never knew when it would happen. We had talked about it for years, but I couldn't have guessed when or how it would come to fruition. On December 5th, 2020, we had planned to go get our Christmas tree. It was the first year in our new home and I was SO excited to get a real tree. It was a tradition with my dad growing up, so now not being in an apartment, we had the opportunity and I was making it happen!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am very go-with-the-flow, especially when there's no real time frame. That morning, started weird when I woke up to the garage door opening and Brandon coming home after leaving without talking to me... I got up and walked past his office where he was nicely dressed, which was just weird for the moment. I was sitting on the couch, drinking my coffee, when he came down the stairs with his hair spiked, telling me to go get ready... Again, just weird for the morning... He was up to something. As I reluctantly agreed, I walked up the stairs to which he yelled "wear jeans or something". It was then I KNEW he was up to something, but could it be a proposal??? I was text bombing my friend Kara and it was hilarious. I even make a tik tok with my chain of thoughts.

Without dragging this on even more, the car ride was SILENT on the way to the tree farm, again, weird. As we were walking through the forest, he grabbed my hand, again, weird for us, and started his little speech, which I don't remember much of and asked me to spend forever with him.

I am so thankful for our journey that has lead us to this moment, and I cannot wait to get married and begin this next chapter of our lives together!

Brooklyn and I have been together for 6+ years now - dating back to January 23rd, 2016 for our first date. Prior to meeting for the first time, I knew of Brooklyn for months. I was trying to get one of our mutual friends to join on a double date, but it kept hitting a snag. Eventually, I "grabbed the bull by the horns" and introduced myself on my own. Less than a week later, we were on our first date - mini golf and Cinnabon. A month later, the baseball season was upon us and I was taking off for the summer circuit.

Between plane flights, phone calls, and a thousand miles, we stuck it out and got through the first season together. We continued on the same track until ball wrapped up almost 2 years into our relationship.

Flash forward a few years, a couple upgraded apartments, and our first house, and I am searching Pintrest pages, making phone calls, and buying a diamond ring.

Christmas has always been a special time for us, like most out there. It was our first Christmas in our own house, with our own tree, and we wanted to get the real thing. Growing up, Brooklyn's dad always had a large live tree, and Brooklyn was extremely excited we were getting our own. Knowing this, I thought proposing while we were at the Christmas tree farm would be a great place to start our next chapter.

Thankfully, she said yes back in December of 2020. Now, we are wrapping up wedding plans and gearing up for our big day, as we start the next chapter of our story. I speak for the both of us in saying we thoroughly look forward to seeing you all, and are grateful to spend our special day with each and every one of you.

From our perspective, the Brooklyn & Brandon story began when Brooklyn was in college and living in her sorority house. We heard about this guy who was a friend of one of Brooklyn’s Viking Cheerleader friends. She shared with us she was thinking of going out with him but hadn’t made up her mind. Then next thing I hear, she is going on a date and they are going to meet at the Mall of America. The mom in me thought….. good…. If you have to meet a guy who you don’t really know, have never met in person, before…… public place…. good…….

I remember talking to her after her date and she said he was cute, he was nice, but didn’t elaborate too much. I asked if she was going to see him again and she said she thought so, but we’ll see………. Mom got the message…. That was all mom was going to get-no pushing for more info this time. Felt like a “don’t want to get my hopes up, but I hope he calls…. but if he doesn’t, don’t want to have to explain to mom why not” kind of an answer. 😊 😊

Shortly thereafter Brooklyn had her knee surgery. You know what they say about anesthesia…….. all truths come out when you are coming out of anesthesia. Well, we heard all about Brandon and how cute he was, and how sweet he was, and how handsome he was, and how cute he was, and how sweet he was, and how nice he was, and how sweet he was…….and repeating and repeating and repeating…. you get the picture… over and over…..loopy Brooklyn coming out of anesthesia and whew…..Brandon was on definitely on her mind…..

We eventually had the opportunity to meet Brandon and we of course saw all the wonderful things Brooklyn had shared with us that she had seen. He instantly fit right in as another one of “the boys” in the family. In addition to obviously playing sports, we found out he is a hunter, fisherman, and a golfer. The clincher was finding out he shared the same birthday as Julius (Brooklyn’s youngest brother). We said, that is definitely a sign. At the birthday party in September of 2016, the remark was made “We will be celebrating these two birthdays together from here on out”.

Welcome to the family Brandon! We love you! We love you both! Our hearts are so happy for both of you!

Before the night of their 1st date Brandon was very excited, nervous, and different. You could tell he was excited that he was going out with someone that really caught his attention, nervous for he didn’t know if she had the same interest in him and different. Different may be a strange way of describing it but he was comfortable with himself, was following his dream playing baseball and interested in meeting someone that he hoped would have that special something. Brooklyn and Brandon had actually never met. They knew of each other through a high school friend of Brandon’s that was also a cheerleader with Brooklyn. Brandon mentioned more than once how beautiful he thought she was. When Brandon talked about her, he was just in awe. As the night approached, he questioned going mini golfing, but since they really didn’t know each other, it would provide a way to spend time together and get to know each other without any expectations. As we know now, the night was a complete success. The two did play mini golf but also spent the night just talking on a bench. What a wonderful start to a relationship.