Ryan and Emily's story began in the second half of 2020. Shortly after Emily moved to the United States, she attended church services in Rantoul with her aunt and uncle. This was during the Covid pandemic when the Rantoul congregation worshipped outside in the parking lot. While the congregation worshipped outside, there were still some individuals working "behind the scenes" inside the building, of which Ryan was one. Ryan saw Emily first out the window as he was preparing for services to start while Emily saw Ryan a bit later as the person changing out microphones or attending to the phone that was streaming services.

Ryan and Emily didn't really talk much to each other (though as they later found out, both at this time had an interest in the other). As time went on, Emily became good friends with Ryan's sister. This led to Ryan and Emily being around each other more frequently and even a few opportunities to have one-on-one conversations.

People watched the interactions of Ryan and Emily, noticing how Emily's body language and actions suggested she was really interested in Ryan. Ryan always brushed it off as "she's just being nice" when people told him this but he always kept it in mind. Eventually it got to a point where a family that is close to Ryan's family point blank told Ryan to ask Emily out on a date (he again brushed it off at the time, but kept it in mind).

But one day after an archery outing with the college aged group from church, Emily texted Ryan for the first time. After going back and forth about some things that happened that day, Emily made the offer to Ryan that if he ever needed "someone to talk, hang out or whatever, feel free to text me". Ryan thought long and hard the next two days about Emily's offer and decided to ask her to hang out the following week (which they later decided to formally call a date). Ryan and Emily would have two more dates before Ryan asked Emily to be his girlfriend at Middle Fork Forest Preserve (where he also asked her to be his wife 11 months later).