His version:

In December of 2023, I decided to give online dating a try and fired up a site called CatholicMatch. I had tried CatholicMatch previously and had had no up luck, but for whatever reason (probably divine providence), I decided to give it another try, despite work being extremely stressful at the time. After a few days of very much NOT matching, I received a message.

I remember the day vividly. It was December 22, and I was at home watching basketball and dreaming of a Michigan national championship, when I received a message on the app from a beautiful woman named Jillian. I did the cool thing and waited to respond, and calmly put my phone away before checking the message. 46 seconds later, I lost patience and eagerly opened the messaging application. And can I just say, WOW! Not only was she beautiful, her profile documented her experiences as a dedicated Catholic, traveler and hiker. I thought to myself the only way this girl couldn't check every box was if she said something really lame in the message. God be praised, she mustered every ounce of her cleverness and hit with me an incredible pick-up line.

"Hey Tony!"

Instantly, I fell head over heels. This girl is amazing! She truly had it all! I quickly formulated a plan based on dating science that if we were able to hit it off in conversation, I would wait until December 26 and then ask her on a date, so that I didn't appear too eager or interrupt her holiday with family. This plan was shattered when on December 23 or early on December 24, Jill said that she wasn't about wasting her time or mine and if we wanted to go on a date we should schedule something. I read the text and put my phone away - of course I wanted to take this incredible girl on a date, but I mustn't appear too eager - and then immediately pulled my phone out again and explained my master plan. "I was going to ask you out, please believe me!" We quickly settled on December 27 to go ice skating in East Lansing.

Maybe it was divine providence again, but we were the last 2 people to get tickets into the rink, and Jill caught me as I fell 4 times while she pirouetted around the ice like she was born to it. The next stage of my master plan was then initiated as I loaned her a book so she was committed to hang out with me again. We went to a used book store and a coffee shop and watched videos of Brooklyn 99 before parting ways. We exchanged numbers and I immediately called Bryce and Kelsey to tell them that Jill was something special, and I had a good feeling about her.

The next months were a whirl, meeting family and friends and exchanging hearts and notes with each other. We talked on the phone every day and began praying together. In April, we opened the topic of what marriage could look like for the first time after attending a friends wedding. In May, we decided to go on a trip together in October to Seattle. The major event was going to be the Michigan vs Washington football game (Jill has been very supportive of my love of the states major university) and then spend a few days in Olympic National Park hiking. Our conversations about the future continued in the meantime and in late July after Jill completed the Camino in Portugal and Spain (what a rockstar), we started openly talking about how long a discernment period we needed before pursuing marriage as an engaged couple. I then hatched my next master plan to propose while in Washington state.

With some help from all of Jill's loved ones that kept the secret, I was able to convince Jill that I would not be proposing in perhaps the most beautiful landscape in all of the United States, but would save it for our next visit to Hopcat or something. Jill, I think, was intentionally unaware of all of my excuses in the previous months to go ring shopping or ask her parents blessing at the famous Tomato Brothers. I devised a scavenger hunt throughout Seattle that, when solved, would reveal a hike on Monday morning in the national park. Smarty-pants Jill solved the whole thing while we were walking to the bus stop in the morning, and a few days later we woke up early to go up to Hurricane Ridge, Sunrise Point.

Unfortunately, a little tension was created on the way to the hike between Jill and myself as I intentionally stalled for time to give the photographer time to get up to the overlook and capture the moment. We arrived at the park, and saw only 1 other car on the far end of the lot, which made me nervous. Why would the photographer park so far away from the trailhead? I stalled two more times, once to complain about the lack of service on top of the mountain, and the other time to remind Jill about the importance of stretching before strenuous exercise. This incredibly patient woman allowed me to work the both of us through a short period of calisthenics and stretching exercises. Once I was satisfied with our safety, we continued the rest of the 0.5 mile hike. When we arrived, I started to panic a little since the photographer was not there and was supposed to have arrived 15 minutes prior.

Jill was loving life, watching the sunrise, taking photos and being one with nature. I was sitting there staring at the road far below us, muttering to myself about the unreliability of Alfred, the photographer. Little did I know, his map had flipped the orientation to South-North, so he was on the far end of the parking lot frantically trying to get ahold of me. After 1 hour of waiting (Jill tells me it was 15 minutes max) I heard the huffing and puffing of a man sure he was going to have to return a deposit fee to his customer. We made eye contact, and then I really got nervous.

After Alfred got set up and took a few nature shots, I finally told Jill that I had one more riddle for her, and pulled a piece of paper with a timeline of the whole engagement process - ring shopping, parental blessing, photographer, and proposal - and gave it to her. After a second, I dropped to one knee and asked Jillian to marry me. Jill, in the most romantic and happiest moment of our lives, looked into my eyes deeply and emotionally. She then opened her mouth, my heart pounding loudly. And she said, "You sneaky snake!" as she gave me a hug. After a minute, she corrected her statement to "Yes!" which was a really nice thing to hear. Alfred locked in and got some amazing photos and we were finally able to celebrate together at Sunrise Point as the sun cleared the top of the mountains.

I'm so thankful that Jill and I were able to meet in such unlikely circumstances, and so thankful for all of you that were, are, and will be a part of our journey.

Tony

Her version:

Tony and I first met online in late December 2023. Winter break had just started for me, so I had some energy and excitement that I decided to channel toward online dating, something which had drained energy and excitement from me for the last couple of years. I saw Tony’s profile and immediately knew I would want to send him a message. He seemed goofy, intelligent, handsome, kind, and committed to his faith, what a combo! I sent him a message asking about all of his travels and he responded saying that he was going to Ireland soon. As a proud woman of Irish heritage, I thought this was a great sign for our connection. We chatted a bit more about travel, hobbies, and holiday plans. Our conversation was going great online, so I subtly hinted that we should get together in person and thankfully Tony asked me out shortly after.

We met on December 27th for our first date, and it was the best date I had ever been on. We went ice skating, then perused a used book store, and ended at a coffee shop. The activities weren’t what made the date so great, it was how easy it was to be myself around Tony. Our conversations flowed so naturally and we had a lot of fun together doing simple things. His personality also matched his profile, which I had learned by this point was not always the case. Not only was he goofy, intelligent, handsome, kind, and committed to his faith, but he was also thoughtful, sweet, authentic, and even more handsome in person. How couldn’t I have started falling for him? After the date ended, I couldn’t wait to tell my sister and my friends about him. I sent a message to 4 of my bridesmaids, Claire, Julia, Regin, and Jaclyn, letting them know how excited I was about this guy and the connection we had right off the bat. They had heard me talk about many not so great dates from online dating, so they were excited for me as well.

We became official about two weeks later on January 14th. We spent the next couple of months experiencing the firsts of our relationship together. First time meeting each others’ families and friends, first time exchanging I love yous, first time going to Hopcat together (a now beloved tradition), and many more. We started to intentionally make our faith the center of our relationship and our connection blossomed from there. It became more clear how and why God brought the two of us together. We began openly talking more about our future together and where God was leading us in our relationship. We talked about marriage and were excited to imagine what that might look like for us.

In July we decided that October-December would be the time when both of us would be ready to be engaged. I told my sister, my parents, and a few of my closest friends about this conversation and shared lots of excitement with them. I knew Tony would want the proposal to be a surprise, but I also knew my perceptivity could ruin the surprise. So I really tried to not read into things for the next couple of months while Tony got things in order for the proposal.

Back in May before any talk of engagement, we had planned a trip for October to Washington state. Tony had also planned a solo trip to Turkey and Greece for mid-September. I thought that our Seattle trip would be a great time to get engaged, but I knew that if Tony was going to propose on our Washington trip, he would want everything planned before he left for his solo trip. I couldn’t help myself, so I did a little bit of snooping, but couldn’t figure much out. I got mixed responses from my sister and my friends on whether or not they thought it would happen on the trip. Ultimately, it ended up being my parents who really fooled me. They did a great job casually making it seem like Tony hadn’t asked for their blessing yet, even though he already had. I brought up mine and Tony’s engagement timeline to them again and their response was “Oh, so when you told us about that back in July, you were serious about that timeline? Okay, well that’s exciting! It’s coming up soon!” I was slightly offended that they didn’t think I was serious about the engagement timeline when I had first told them about it. After that conversation, I was almost positive Tony hadn’t asked them for their blessing. And at this point in time, Tony was leaving for his solo trip in a couple days so he wouldn’t have had time to ask my parents anything before he left. Some of my friends were still convinced that it was going to happen in Washington, but I decided that I was going to tell myself that it wasn’t and was just going to enjoy our first trip together. I did still have some fun with it and sneakily took pictures of my left hand with no ring on my finger to send to my friends on “ring watch”.

Tony had planned a fun scavenger hunt through the city of Seattle for us and all of the clues together revealed that we would do a sunrise hike in Olympic National Park on the final day of our trip. I love sunrises and hiking, so this was a great surprise! On Sunday night, the night before the sunrise hike, we were driving to our Airbnb. On the drive I told Tony how many of my friends thought the proposal was going to happen on this trip and he laughed it off and then thanked me for not putting pressure on him to do the proposal on this trip even though it seemed like the perfect time. He explained how much effort and stress planning a proposal can be for a guy, sealing the deal in my mind that he definitely was not proposing the next morning at sunrise.

The next morning we both woke up very early so we would be at the viewpoint by sunrise. We began our drive in the dark. As we got closer I began to see the sun peaking over the horizon so I was anxious and in a hurry to get to the trailhead. Tony, however, did not seem like he was in a hurry at all. He was driving slower than usual, searching for very specific songs to play on his phone, and slowing down at viewpoints along the way. My patience was starting to run out and the sun was getting brighter and brighter. We pulled up to the trailhead and I immediately jumped out of the car while Tony sat in the car laughing at a text that had come through. I did not think it was funny and told him we needed to hurry up. He apologized and kept pace with me while I cruised up the trail. The views were amazing so when Tony asked to stop and stretch before we reached the viewpoint, I obliged. We made it to the viewpoint 5 minutes later and it was stunning! Luckily enough, we were the only ones there, so we were able to soak up the moment alone. Tony, who usually likes being on the move, said “I could stay here for another hour looking at the view with you.” Little did I know, the view wasn’t the only thing keeping him at the viewpoint. About 10 minutes later, a photographer came up to where we were sitting. I assumed he was just there to capture the beautiful sunrise. Shortly after, Tony explained that there was one more hint for the scavenger hunt and handed me a piece of paper outlining the timeline of the engagement process and him planning the proposal. Then I looked up from the paper and there he was down on one knee asking me if I would marry him! Of course I said yes. I still get butterflies thinking about how Tony planned my dream proposal and surprised me AND managed to have a photographer there to capture the moment.

I am so excited to spend the rest of my life with the man God answered my prayers with. We can’t wait to celebrate our wedding day with you this July!