Andrew and Maddie both went to school at Concordia College, and knew of each other through mutual friends and various involvements on campus. They first really got to know each other during training to be Orientation Leaders in 2021. Andrew low-key had a crush on Maddie, but did not make a move. In fact, it took all of his courage to ask to take this picture with her on the last night of training before the first-year students arrived.

A flirting attempt by Andrew over Facebook Messenger. Maddie was oblivious.

Andrew worked the lights for Maddie's first concert singing with the Concordia Choir. He made one more attempt to flirt, but Maddie was oblivious and thought he just liked the choir. Andrew then thought "message received" and gave up.

When Andrew graduated in May 2022, he began working in Admissions at Concordia, where Maddie also worked every day in the summer as a tour guide. They reconnected through work, and additionally, began to spend more time together with mutual friends outside of work.

They competed in several trivia nights at Rhombus Guys' Pizza during the summer, and on this particular night, Andrew realized that he liked Maddie and decided to pursue her.

First date. At the end of the date, Andrew asked Maddie if she wanted to go on a date with him, to which she replied "yes" with a little confusion, because they had just gone on a date.

A few days after their first date, Maddie tagged along to celebrate Andrew's 21st birthday.

In the early days of their relationship, they played a lot of scrabble together. This photo was taken after Maddie had a loss so tough that Andrew had to put the score sheet on her fridge.

Around a week after their first date, Andrew found out that he would need open heart surgery the next month. Maddie spent some time praying and carefully considering the relationship, knowing that she would need to be "all in" with him during and after surgery. Then, 3 weeks before the heart surgery was scheduled, Andrew had a retinal detachment and had emergency surgery to repair it. While his eye healed, he had to spend three days face-down, during which Maddie came over to entertain him. They were utterly surprised that, after several days spent together while he recovered from the eye surgery, they were not sick of each other. Later on, after the heart surgery, he told Maddie that he loved her for the first time.

Andrew spent Thanksgiving with Maddie's family. While there, they had a date night downtown in Duluth. During this trip, Andrew made fun of Maddie's driving skills a lot, and they first began to discuss marriage.

Andrew's handmade Christmas gift to Maddie.

Andrew went on a Caribbean cruise with his family in early June, and decided this would be the perfect opportunity to find an engagement ring for Maddie. When he returned and went to see Maddie at her parents' house, he asked their permission to marry Maddie and showed them the ring. They were thrilled, and so the next day, Andrew took the ring with him when he and Maddie when hiking at Jay Cooke State Park. When they got to an overlook of the river, Andrew decided this was the perfect place and time to ask Maddie to marry him. He turned to Maddie and said, "Hey, I love you a lot, and I want to keep loving you for a long time." Maddie then kissed Andrew and he thought, 'This is great, but I was trying to do something there.' Then a family showed up at the overlook, and Andrew realized his window had closed. Maddie saw he was a little bummed they had ruined their moment, and she said, "This isn't even the main spot." Hope was reignited for Andrew! When they got to main overlook, Andrew turned to Maddie and said, "Hey, I love you a lot, and I want to keep loving you for a long time." Maddie jokingly responded by saying, "What, are you gonna propose?" "Actually, yeah," Andrew responded. He proceeded to pull out the ring and get down on one knee. "OH MY GOSH!" Maddie exclaimed. "Is this real?! Is this a joke?!" Andrew assured her it wasn't, and after kneeling for awhile, said, "I'm waiting on an answer." "You haven't asked a question," responded Maddie. Andrew realized in all the excitement, he had not, in fact, explicitly asked Maddie to marry him. He quickly fixed that problem, and Maddie enthusiastically said yes.