Kristen and Nick met while working in Fantasyland in 2016. They had casual conversations in the break room, but didn’t really become friends until they (by chance) ended up in the same Engineering classes at UCF a year later. Their favorite memories from this era include late night trips to Walmart for a Manufacturing project and ringing in Kristen’s 21st birthday with a Dynamics exam.

In 2019, Nick moved back to his favorite city (Chicago, if explanation was needed) and Kristen went to visit him later that year. A few months into the pandemic, they began talking more frequently. About a dozen trips after Kristen had traveled to Chicago to see him, Nick finally asked her to be his girlfriend in March 2021. They did about 6 months of long distance, traveling to Orlando or Chicago every other weekend. Nick got his dream job at Lockheed Martin, where Kristen had already been working for a few years, and was able to move back down to Orlando.

Nick proposed 3 years later on a trip to Japan.