When Nick Met Maddie (Nick's Version):

I met Maddie at Purdue University. We were in the same year, we lived in the same dorm, and we were even in the same major! But it took awhile for us to meet (Note: All Freshman Engineers are lumped together before they join a specific branch of engineering in their Sophomore year). In fact, that first semester of Freshman year, we were even in the same class together every single day. And it wasn’t a huge lecture with hundreds of students, it was Honors Calculus 3 – there were only 30 of us! AND I even met and talked to Nicole [Bridesmaid] in that class, who was Maddie’s roommate and they sat next to each other! How did we not meet at all in that semester? I still don’t know. But the universe decided to force us together the next semester. Our instructor in our engineering course was Lee Rynearson. He had us fill out CATME surveys all the time, and one of those surveys determined who was on each engineering team for the 2nd semester. We ended up on the same 4-person engineering team in a class of 80 students (uuuuummmmm Serendipity much?!). Maddie and I still thank that CATME survey (and Professor Rynearson [AKA Lee-sensei]) for pushing us together.

Being on the same engineering team for all of our 2nd semester at Purdue (Spring 2016) meant that we spent 2 hours together every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We also spent countless hours out of class together working on homeworks and projects. And due to our teammate J.C. always being busy with pep-band, Maddie and I ended up spending a lot of time together, just the two of us. In fact, one of our earliest times together was when we had to go buy components for our mousetrap car (engineering project). Neither of us had a car, so we took a bus to Walmart. The busride and time at the store probably added up to about 3 hours, and we definitely got to know each other a little better by the time we got back to the dorms. I enjoyed that trip, and I enjoyed the rest of our team meetings. Actually, as the semester went on, Maddie and I started staying late after our team meetings to keep talking, and eventually I asked her if she wanted to watch a movie together. I don’t remember the exact words she used, but she said yes.

So we wound up watching one of my favorite movies, Legends of the Fall, in Maddie’s freezing cold dorm room (Nicole liked it cold, or so Maddie tells me). About 20 minutes into the Legends of the Fall, I paused the movie and asked Maddie, “So what are we really doing here?”. This flustered Maddie BIG TIME, and I spent the next 5 minutes getting her to admit that she “liked me” before I then told her “I like you too”. Note: I have since been told that this is a TERRIBLE experience from the other side, to NEVER EVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT AGAIN, and specifically NEVER MAKE SOMEONE SAY THEY LIKE YOU BEFORE SAYING IT YOURSELF, WHAT WAS WRONG WITH YOU. [I will never hear the end of that]. After that, Maddie and I were definitely more friendly, but we were close to the end of the semester, and I was going to be starting my co-op at Chrysler in Michigan, while she was going to be a research assistant at UChicago over the summer. So we agreed not to start a relationship, and “see how it goes” the next fall. We kept that agreement, and that next fall semester, we started meeting up every week or two to talk and hang out. But we didn’t start dating until the next semester after that.

That next semester was the Spring of 2016. I was in Michigan for my Chrysler co-op, and Maddie was back in West Lafayette at Purdue. A few weeks into the start of the semester [January], I FaceTimed Maddie and we talked all night. After that, I started calling her more and more after work, and eventually we were talking almost every night. In February, I asked Maddie if she would be my Valentine, and we went on our first date a few weeks later. It was a very romantic date that consisted of eating Coney Island hot dogs (well I did, Maddie got plain hotdogs with ketchup ONLY) and going to the theater to watch the Lego Batman movie. Okay so maybe it wasn’t the most romantic movie, but we had a great time. Also, we love Movie Theater Popcorn, and always going to movies together. From that day on, we officially started “dating”.

Note: After posting this, Nick was informed that HE said the Lego Batman date was not an official “date”… and that the first official date was Mountain Jacks and seeing Gifted… so his memory is not exactly lining up. Nick will tell you that this is not the first time, and definitely not the last, where MADDIE IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!

Thank you for your generosity and for celebrating this milestone moment with us. It means so much!