Hi Everyone! Counting down the days to celebrate with all of you this September… it’ll be here before we know it! In the meantime, we wanted to share a little bit about our lengthy history and how we got to where we are today. By lengthy, we mean lengthy. We have known of each other since middle school and will have been together for over eight years by the time the wedding bells ring!

We were both lucky to have been born and raised in the elite NW suburb of Arlington (Action) Heights. However, the town almost wasn’t big enough for the both of us - we first knew of each other as rivals. Lauren was a Bulldog from the north side of the train tracks (St. James) while Danny was a south side Wildcat (Our Lady of the Wayside). Given mutual family/friend connections, we found ourselves running in similar crowds as early as 5th/6th grade - often times under the Friday night lights at our future high school’s (St. Viator) football games.

While we knew each other early on, and maybe shared some text messages via iPod touch in middle school, we didn’t get to know each other well until high school. We were once again lucky and found ourselves in the same homeroom, becoming homework buddies not too long into our respective high school careers. With Lauren spending all her free time on the soccer pitch and Danny the basketball court, we had to make the most of any remaining free time to get our schoolwork done (and maybe bend the edges on “original work” if we could save some time). By the end of high school, Danny finally worked up his courage and asked Lauren to prom - which so happened to fall on the date of her first playoff soccer game. Danny happily rooted her on in his Prom tux while Lauren got to play a game with full makeup and hair done (and hair in a hairnet!).

Despite going to different colleges (Lauren to the University of Illinois and Danny to Notre Dame), we ultimately decided we wanted to keep this thing going because we knew we had something special. Following countless 330+ mile (each way) drives to U of I bar crawls, Notre Dame football games, and everything in between, we made it through four years of ups and downs (but mostly ups) at graduation in 2020. Well… Lauren never actually got an in person graduation and Danny didn’t walk across the stage officially until 2022.

Nevertheless! Following a year at home post-college we each moved down to Chicago with friends in 2021 and moved in together in July of 2023, just a week before Danny got down on one knee in Lincoln Park on 7/7/23. Fast forward to today, we’re living together in Lincoln Park with our three (almost four) year old pup, Cece. When we’re not out walking her (or when she’s not walking us…), we’re trying out new bars/restaurants with our friends in the city, getting out to the lake, getting after it on the Pickle ball courts, or making weekend trips to see our families in the suburbs (and give Cece some space to run around!). We feel so blessed to have so many friends & family who have played an important role in our story to celebrate with us - can’t wait for 9.28.24!