We met at the age of 16 in April 2016 through our friend Ryan Matey. We sat at the same table during lunch at Antonio's in Canton, MI. I (Lauren) thought Michael was very cute and attempted to make conversation with him. He was very shy at first, and mostly kept to himself. When he got up to go to the bathroom I told Ryan that I thought Michael was cute, which then made Ryan determined to set us up. He decided to tell Michael I thought he was cute right in front of me (very embarrassing), but his scheming seemed to have worked. After Michael played a little hard to get we went on numerous dates for four months in order to get to know each other and began dating on August 21, 2016 at the ages of 17 and 16 years old.

Four days prior to getting engaged, my friend Ryan Matey asked me to go to an AKPSI Christmas event. For those who do not know what AKPSI is, it's a business fraternity that Ryan was the president of while he was in college. Ryan knew it was going to take a lot of effort in order to fool me, so he had an entire AKPSI invitation made in order to throw me off. Of course the invitation said to wear formal attire and stated reservations were held in downtown Detroit near Campus Martius.

The night before the big day I ended up working a 16 hour shift and was exhausted. Ryan was so nervous that I wouldn't wake up, so he called me numerous times throughout the day. After waking up, running us late, and almost walking out the door with wet hair, we were finally on our way to downtown Detroit. At that point I realized I hadn't heard from Michael all day, but remembered he told me he was playing hockey. Little did I know, Michael was already in Detroit, ready to surprise me.

Once we got to Campus Martius, Ryan stated he wanted to walk around. As we were walking around, I spotted Michael and immediately my eyes filled with tears. The next thing I knew he was saying a little speech and asked me to marry him. I, of course, said yes. He then took me to a lovely reservation at Prime and Proper where we drank champagne and ate delicious food. It was the most perfect day.

In September I asked Megan, Lauren's oldest sister, to go ring shopping with Lauren. She picked out a few of her favorites. When I went to pick one out, there was one that immediately stuck out to me. I hid the ring for a couple months until the right moment.

First, I asked my parents and they were so excited and could hardly keep it a secret. Later in the week, I went to ask Lauren's parents. To my surprise, the whole family was baking cookies there. They were all full of questions and couldn't wait for me to ask.

The last thing to do was plan a way to surprise her. I had to go to one of my best and most trusted friends, Ryan Matey. Ryan and I planned a way for him to drive Lauren to Detroit to meet me at Campus Martius. When I first saw her, she looked beautiful per usual and I was very nervous. Her first words were, "I'm scared," which was not the most reassuring. Lucky for me she said yes and we had a great rest of the night celebrating together.