I'll be honest, I didn't think anyone read these or cared about this but after hearing enough people ask where it was here I am 31 days away from the wedding finally putting some pen to paper!

Roughly 9 years ago little Jake decided that he needed to get a job to pay for his college escapades, and the job that seemed the most appealing to him (easiest) was working at the gyms on the UW Madison campus. Little did he know that RecSports already had an employee by the name of Emily Green that one day would become his wife. That day was very far off, as Jake and Emily didn't actually have a conversation outside of a forced icebreaker during a semi-annual training until 2018 (pictured above).

Their paths only really crossed at that point because they were both super seniors and all of their friends had gone on to bigger and better things, while Jake and Emily were still stuck taking classes (Jake didn't really go to class, Emily was studious) and making sure the gyms didn't burn down (their jobs really weren't that important). That being said, over the course of that year the conversations transitioned from "anything I need to know?" at shift change, to "what are you planning on doing with your life?" when Jake would hang out in the office with Emily for 20 minutes after his shift was over, to "actually what do you even like to do?" because they realized they didn't really know anything about each other.

Their super senior year came and went, and by the end of it you could comfortably say that they had finally become friends. For some reason they waited until after graduation to really start hanging out, and at that point Jake was planning on moving to Chicago for PT school in a few short months. During that time, they spent nearly every day together doing everything and anything ranging from watching movies on the field at Camp Randall, spending time at her lake house, hiking at Devil's Lake and indulging in a few drinks at UU.

July 19th came around, roughly 3 weeks before Jake moved to Chicago when he popped the "do you wanna be my girlfriend?" question. Fun fact, it was on the way to a Jimmy Buffet concert.

The rest of this probably won't be as funny or as detailed as the start of this was, but that's because this was the beginning of their 4 years of long distance due to Jake starting and finishing PT school in Chicago followed by moving to Hudson (maybe in to her parent's basement) while Emily moved from Madison to Minneapolis, then down to West Virginia to start and finish PA school. That being said, here are some highlights...

1. Emily would frequently make the drive from Minneapolis to Chicago for long weekends to hangout. The hangouts mostly consisted of her sitting in Jake's room while he was in class, then when he got home they would either eat donuts or pizza.

2. Jake, Emily, and her dad spent roughly a month living at their lake house in Waupaca where every day was capped off by a pontoon cruise around the lake (I couldn't tell you how many acres the lake was or how many minutes it took to go around, but I do know it was the perfect length to finish a double old fashioned)

3. Emily flew in late Friday to Chicago for Jake's PT school graduation on Saturday, then Jake's mom had to drive her to the airport on Sunday at 4AM after being out until 2AM because her school wouldn't let her take any days off.

4. Jake wasn't as good at visiting Emily in West Virginia as she was at visiting him in Chicago, however he did show up to her white coat ceremony about 15 minutes before it started due to his flight getting delayed with a nice mullet and gross mustache (he fit right in).

5. Emily and Jake got engaged!!! During a lovely camping trip up to the North Shore. It went off without a hitch for the most part and she was surprised, however looking back she probably should have known something was up because his road rage was a little bit extra on the drive up and he wouldn't let his green Patagonia sling bag (that had the ring in it) out of his sight.

6. Jake went down again for her graduation, then back to WI, then back to WV again to move her back home FINALLY FOR GOOD!

At that point Emily moved back in with her parents (where Jake maybe still lived), they got Stevie the perfect not so little goldendoodle, Emily got a job, and they moved to St. Louis Park close to where Emily grew up and close to where many of their friends now live.

I think those are most of the big things, and if I've missed something I'm sure someone will let me know (just as they've let me know they've patiently been waiting for this story!)

I hope it was worth the wait, it was fun to reminisce on our past together, and we are both so very excited for starting our next chapter as husband and wife!!!

E&J

Wedding Day