We met at 1021 Fahrenbrook Court when Nick lived with one of Kristen’s high school friends, Jeremy. We stood in the corner at their party talking about cars for about 2 hours. Nick asked Jeremy if Kristen was single at the time. Unfortunately, she was not.

Kristen finally became single second semester of junior year of college and needed a formal date! She texted Nick while visiting Erin at Michigan and asked him to formal. He said yes and the rest was history. Nick did not kiss Kristen until the night of formal.

We proceeded to have the best summer together. We both were spending the summer in Madison. Kristen was working on her research gig and he was working parking enforcement. We probably spent every day of the week together. We swam. We partied. We explored the lakeshore path. However, along with all of this happiness was the looming fact that Nick was transferring schools for his senior year. Nick asked Kristen to be his girlfriend July 19th on the Memorial Terrace, and she figured, “why not.” She really liked the guy and figured why not try distance. Milwaukee was not that far. Nick made the distance easier than she could have ever imagined. He drove to Madison almost every weekend to see her and all of our friends.

We survived distance all of senior year, and Kristen had been accepted to medical school at Loyola. So instead of the distance from Milwaukee to Madison, we would do Milwaukee to Chicago. It is about the same distance. We figured again, why not, let’s try it.

Medical school was no joke. Nick came to visit me more often than not. He was there for Kristen through the best and the worst of it. She could always count on him to be her standardized patient or quiz me with flashcards. He even lived the summer between M1 and M2 year at Kristen’s med school friend’s places to be able to make his internship work. Nick graduated his last year at UWM and accepted a job at Bosch, which meant we would once again live in the same city! We were so excited to live near each other again.

Nick found a great spot on the edge of West loop that Kristen moved into M3 year. Co-habitation was (and still is) a blast. We survived all of the true COVID quarantine together. We fostered a dog for 3 months. We survived residency interview season together while he worked from home. March of M4 year, Kristen matched into pediatric residency at Advocate Christ in Oak Lawn. This meant we would be staying in the Chicago area and would not have to do distance again.

Nick has continued to support Kristen’s medical journey & Kristen couldn’t be more thankful for him. Kristen nagged him for 9 long months until he took her to the Chicago Botanic Gardens on October 3rd, 2021. He was being super weird about planning a date and at the last minute asked if Katie and her boyfriend could come with us. Kristen had a feeling he would propose and actually saw the box in his pocket before he did it! He did surprise Kristen with a photographer though and went totally rogue on the ring. It is beautiful, and she loves it.

Nick knew Kristen would go into planning mode as soon as possible. She selected her bridal party about 2 weeks after the engagement. We toured several venues in both Milwaukee and Chicago, but fell in love with the Morton Arboretum. It captures our love for scenery while still being close to family and friends. We booked our date June 24th, 2023 a couple months later, allowing for all of our family and friends to come celebrate with us on this date. We look forward to a life full of dogs, fast cars, and kiddos. Thank you for coming to celebrate the legalization of our love.