Jarred and I first started talking to each other in December 2020 around Christmas/New Years through an online dating app (hehehe Tinder). When I was in college, I had used some of these apps before just for fun when I was bored, sitting in my living room with my roommates at the time. Isn’t that what a lot of people ended up doing?

After I left Brookings during the pandemic, I started using dating apps again back home and wasn’t really expecting much to come out of it because…(let’s be honest it was Southwest Minnesota) Then, in came Jarred. Erin made the first move and the conversations started flowing. We were talking for a few weeks before we decided to go on a first date. When Jarred told his friends about me, they were shocked that he was even going on a date. One date led to two and after the second date Jarred asked if I wanted this to become “something more”. My response was, “I don’t know, maybe?” and I thought I messed everything up. I then called one of my friends asking what he meant by that and then realized he wanted to make things official. I then frantically texted him back saying YES and that’s where our story really took off. We started dating in January 2021 and enjoy spending time together and making lots of memories.

In March 2023 we were supposed to spend a few days up North with Jarred’s family as part of a trip that his niece was gifted. Due to the unpredictable Minnesota weather, this trip was rescheduled and we were unable to make the new date work. Jarred had sent me a picture of a new shirt after that and said “this was the shirt I was going to wear to propose to you up north”. Fast forward to Easter 2023, Jarred and I went to church with my grandparents, parents and sister Quinn. After church, we went over to Jarred’s house and spent time with his family. On the drive over I noticed he was a little quiet and knew something was up. Easter was cold and we had off and on mist but his nieces and nephews wanted to go outside to burn off some energy so I decided to go out with them. A little while later Jarred came out and handed me a gift bag from the jewelry store that he bought the ring from and I think my exact words to him were “why am I getting this” and I looked back over at him and he was down on one knee and asked me if I would take 20 minutes to say YES again. I of course said YES immediately this time and we are very excited to start this new chapter of our lives together!