Matt and I worked together at Starbucks for a little less than two years. We were both at very transitory points in our lives. We were both in between schools, and were uncertain of what steps we wanted to take next. After some initial interest on my part (Kathleen's), a co-worker encouraged Matt to ask me out.

Matt and I had a couple of casual dates at first, and then things became more serious as time went on. We went to school together. We got our (my) first apartment together. We both started our respective internships. We struggled a bit financially, but continued towards our goals together. We got our Associate's degrees together, and then our Bachelor's degrees.

Then finally, we had graduated!

Matt and I had always enjoyed traveling together and exploring new places, especially state parks. After my graduation, we visited Maine. We planned to camp for half of the time, and stay the other half in the city of Portland. On our to-do list was to see the sunrise at the peak of Cadillac mountain. During our camping portion of the trip, we woke up at 4 am that Monday and made our way to Acadia. We were unshowered, sleepy, but nevertheless determined to see the sun rise!

It was so windy and crowded. We took several pictures, me on my iphone, and him on his Nikon. After about an hour, we decided to check out a slightly lower peak to get some pictures with less of a crowd. We stepped out of the car, and I walked over to side of the peak to catch the best view. Matt suddenly got in front of me and kneeled down on one knee. I was shocked, but immediately said yes and hugged him. After much smiling and "oh, my gosh"'s, we headed off the mountain to notify our families, and also buy a comforter for our tent as we had miscalculated and nearly froze to death the night before!

We chose a long engagement in the long run. We wanted to buy a house, and get settled before we felt we were ready to dive into a big wedding! Needless to say, COVID-19 felt it needed to be longer. While we had originally planned for November, 2020, the pandemic forced us to change our plans.

So, we rescheduled for May 2021. While we are still anxiously awaiting for this pandemic to finally cease, we are encouraged by the vaccine roll-out and are so excited to marry and celebrate with our family and friends in less than two months!