Rachel and Matt first connected with each other in early January of 2023; according to Matt’s recollection, he was staying in a friend’s apartment in the south Chicago suburb of Orland Park, after attending a wedding reception the night prior. Halfway through a glamorous breakfast, which included a large cup of coffee as well as a bag of pepperoni flavored Combos from a local BP, and attempting to get through The Canterbury Tales for the third or fourth time, he saw that Rachel had messaged him back on the dating app CatholicMatch. After seeing her remarkably cute profile photo, he promptly decided that responding to her message was far more interesting than muddling through “The Miller’s Tale.”

Rachel and Matt continued messaging each other over the subsequent weeks, eventually meeting at the (now unfortunately closed) ice cream shop Stain and Scoop in Mukwonago, WI. While both had fairly busy professional lives at that time, as Rachel finished her first year working full time as a Graphic Designer for a high octane advertising agency based out of Minneapolis, and Matt continued to memorize all of the billboards along I-94 in Minnesota and Wisconsin while working as a traveling salesman for a nonprofit, they were both impressed by the level of detail and care they both spent in conversations over text and over FaceTime. After an ice cream date that lasted for approximately an hour and fifteen minutes, their first date concluded with Rachel asking Matt if he would want to join her for brunch the following morning at the world famous Blue Bay Restaurant (also in Mukwonago); Matt promptly agreed, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The past year has been a tumultuous one for both Rachel and Matt, in addition to their immediate and extended families. In spite of the fact that both had unexpected developments in their professional and personal lives, while also in the midst of all the chaos occurring in the broader world, one constant has been their mutual affection and love for one another, which only continues to grow. They are both grateful for the support shown to them by all of their friends and family members, and they hope to reciprocate that support in the years to come; most importantly, they will both be eternally thankful to the Lord, Jesus Christ, for leading them to this point in their lives, and for being the rock on which they wish to build their marriage and future life together. Regardless of how you wish to say it (Cheers, Prost, Sláinte, Salud, Na Zdrowie, Gānbēi, जय होस्, etc..), they wish you, the reader of this section of the website, good luck and good health, and hope you take the chance to have a beverage, of any kind, on their behalf; preferably a Guinness or Milwaukee’s Best, but a water or coke would work too :).