Thanksgiving 2019: Matt's cousin happened to be a student in Laura's math class. At Thanksgiving, he told Matt that Matt should date his math teacher. Matt thought that was weird, but they decided to do a little Facebook creeping. Matt decided that he should, in fact, date his cousin's math teacher. He decided the smoothest way to go about this would be to send a friend request to Laura from his brother Joe's Facebook account. Laura saw a friend request from Joe Collins, had no idea who Joe Collins was, and promptly deleted said friend request.

Summer 2022: Laura and Matt were both on the dating app Hinge. Matt saw Laura and knew this was his chance. Laura saw that Matt "liked" her on the app and thought he was cute and that they had similar interests, Laura also realized his cousin, her former student, was in one of his pictures. She messaged him to make sure he was in fact 32 and not someone who had graduated high school in the past few years posing as a 32 year old on the internet.

July 31, 2022: Matt and Laura met up at Leaves n Beans coffee shop in Peoria Heights. Laura promptly spilled her coffee on herself, giving Matt a great preview of what was to come. He stuck around anyway.

Summer 2024: Matt and Laura decided it was time to move out of their apartment and give Sunshine the yard he has always deserved.

July 13, 2024: During the closing process of the house, Laura really wanted to get in to the house to get measurements. Matt was really grateful to have a tape measure in his pocket to hopefully make the ring box he was hiding less conspicuous. He had been in cahoots with their real estate agent to plan the proposal in the new house. Although they had talked a lot about the life they planned to build together over the past two years, Laura was completely surprised by the plan. She said yes!

July 12, 2025: Laura and Matt are getting dressed up and making it official with their loved ones surrounding them!

Registry