Joseph and Izabella met back in June of 2021 at Grace College's Preunion meeting for incoming freshmen. Izabella, Heather, and Xander decided to go to the event together since they had all decided to go to Grace in the fall and are all originally from Hillsdale. Once the three of them got there they split up and made friends with several other people. When it was time for the event to end, Izabella and Heather noticed Xander playing tennis with a guy and another girl. Xander brought the guy over and introduced him like this, This is Joseph Bird, he is going to be my roommate. Izabella and Heather were both super surprised at this since neither of them expected this sort of thing to happen in one afternoon. Joseph and Izabella did not talk for the rest of the summer.
By August, Izabella, Joseph, and 460 other grace College freshmen moved into school. All of the freshmen must take 4 core classes during their first year as Grace students. To much of Izabella and Joseph's surprise, they ended up being in the same core class group for the year. Meaning they would see each other 3 times a week in class all year long. Despite being in the same core group, Izabella and Joseph did not interact much the first 2 and half months of school. However, by late October a kinship began to form. Izabella and Joseph would do things like play ping pong and go get Burger King fries at 1am together. The end of semester one came around and the two had mutual feelings for each other, but wanted to be safe and intentional with what they wanted their relationship to look like moving forward. So, the two decided to not start dating until after Christmas break. During the break, Izabella and Joseph would regularly call and talk to each other, as well as do Bible studies.
January rolls around and break ends, Joseph is so excited to ask Izabella to be his girlfriend, but he would have to wait even longer because Izabella caught COVID! Meaning, she would not be allowed to be back on campus until January 15th. For these two weeks of quarantine, Izabella DREADED not being back at school with Joseph and friends. When it came time to go back, Izabella and Joseph were ecstatic! Joseph asked Izabella to be his girlfriend on January 16th, 2022.The couple then dated for exactly 2 years, 10 months, and 15 days before Joseph asked Izabella to be his wife. Since that lovely day the couple has been promptly preparing for their wedding this summer. They are so excited to start this next chapter of life together and are extremely grateful for the experiences and people in their lives who helped get them to this point.