As told by the bride:

In June of 2015, the summer before I started college, I went on a European tour with my high school band. We played a handful of concerts over the course of the two week, seven country tour; and on concert days, we wore matching t-shirts with our high school name on the front. I didn't know at the time, but Derek was studying abroad in Germany the same summer. On the day of the first concert, we were in the German town of Rothenburg and a stranger (guess who) approached my younger sister and asked what the abundance of shirts was for. Kelly explained that we were from Michigan and there for our band trip. Derek then got excited and said that he went to school in Michigan, and was studying Mechanical Engineering with an International German minor at Michigan Tech. Kelly told him that’s where her older sister (yours truly) would be starting college in the fall with the same major. When she told me about the run-in later that evening, we both thought it was a cool coincidence but didn’t think much of it. Tech is relatively small, but he was three years older, I didn’t know his name, or even what he looked like. There was no chance we would cross paths again, right?

Fast forward to my second semester of college the following January. I was taking a social dance class for gym credit, and wore the Europe shirt to my second day of class. Imagine my surprise when "Germany Boy" came up to me and said, “Um, I think I met you in Europe...” Shocked, I clarified that it was Kelly that he met, and I guess the rest is history. Derek and I became dance partners, then friends, and started dating the following summer after he accepted a full-time job near my hometown!

As told by the groom:

In April of 2016, right before the end of my senior year at MTU, I messaged my former dance partner and asked if she wanted to go on a motorcycle ride. She eagerly agreed, and when I picked her up, she asked me to put her keys in my jacket pocket. We took off from the dorms and went to Redridge Dam and Freda to explore some old copper country ruins. Once I dropped her off, I forgot to give back her keys and instead went in for an extremely awkward hug as she stood there waiting for me to return them. It became an inside joke that I was never going to give her keys back. Over the next two years of dating and knowing what a special place Houghton held in our hearts, I knew Redridge Dam was where I wanted to propose to Kathryn. It all came down to timing and convincing her that it wasn’t going to happen at the place we took our first motorcycle ride.

I planned a trip to the UP in the beginning of May 2018 to help Kathryn move out of her dorm room and to “meet up with some college friends for the weekend". This helped to minimize any suspicions that she had. We were supposed to “meet my friends for dinner" on Friday night, but we had some "extra time to kill" before that. I had suggested we go on a motorcycle ride to Redridge because it is one of my favorite roads and it brought back good memories. Unknown to Kathryn sitting behind me, the engagement ring was clipped to a key ring in my jacket pocket so that she wouldn’t feel a box.

Once we got to Redridge Dam, we walked around for a few minutes and enjoyed the view and the rush of the water. As we began to loop around the side of the dam, I threw a few rocks at the wall which for some reason, Kathryn thought was normal. This was my signal to her hiding sorority sister to begin to take pictures, since our footsteps couldn't be heard over the flowing water. I led Kathryn to a tree I had found with a heart spray painted on it, then “dropped” the keys out of my pocket, giving me an excuse to get down on a knee. When I looked back up, I gave a cheesy line about not giving back her keys ever again, but she can have a ring instead. Luckily, she said yes and I got to keep the keys!