Back in April, 2018, we were both in Salt Lake City, Utah in search of our person, and figured it couldn't hurt to see who might be out there on Tinder. Yes, Tinder . . . the infamous dating app of all places. It all started with two swipe rights, then casual chit chat and banter over messages, then finally our first date on a Friday night at the Stoneground Italian Kitchen.


During our first date, we quickly learned there were too many coincidences between us to ignore. Our families both had 5 people and the same family structure, with a mom, a dad, 2 older sisters, and a younger brother. And not only that, we realized that between our two families, 3 of our 5 family members shared the exact same names with identical spelling: Megan's dad is also named Robert, one of Robert's sister's is also named Megan, and we both have sisters named Marissa. Weird, right?! Before then, neither of us had ever met anyone else whose family names were so similar to ours. Some people may have been immediately put off by these coincidences, but it didn't phase us. We ended up getting along so well that we talked for hours and ended up being the last ones in the restaurant without even noticing, until they started turning the lights off on us because they were closing for the night. Our conversation was light, fun, interesting, philosophical, and funny.


Even after we closed the restaurant down, neither of us were ready to leave. Robert kindly offered to give Megan a ride home (at the time, Megan was a fierce independent woman who insisted on taking the bus and walking everywhere, but she graciously accepted). As soon as Megan got into Robert's car, she was immediately terrified and started second-guessing her decision when she saw a mini voodoo doll hanging from Robert’s rearview mirror. She worried after having had such a great night so far, that Robert may actually secretly be into some kind of weird black magic or something creepy (for the record, she hadn’t seen a doll like this before). Megan nervously asked about the doll and Robert chuckled. He said it was a mini keychain voodoo doll from the movie Hellraiser that he'd bought from a vendor at a Haunted House to support their local artwork. Megan felt a little embarrassed, but was instantly flooded with relief, and her heart melted at how thoughtful Robert was. She was smitten!


Lucky for us, that question didn't hinder our great first date. From there, we met up for our second date, then our third, and the rest is history! Robert moved into Megan’s apartment shortly thereafter and we adopted our first cat Llama together. We moved to a bigger apartment, adopted our second cat Ferdi, and made it through the pandemic together. Then we made the wild and courageous decision to uproot both our lives and move to Phoenix, Arizona together for a new job Megan got suddenly. In just one months, we moved to a new city and state, we bought and moved into our first house, Megan started her new job, and Robert started working remotely full-time and started his graduate school program all in the span of a month. It was an absolutely wild time, but we did it, and we did it together.


Through all the changes over the last 7+ years, one thing has remained constant – our love for each other and our desire to spend our lives together. We’ve seen each other at our best and our worst, we’ve supported and empowered each other to achieve our ambitious personal and professional goals, and we’ve never stopped laughing, having fun, and going on adventures along the way.


All these years later, we can’t wait to take this next step together and “put a ring on it!” as Robert said to Megan when he proposed (quoting Beyoncé) and be with you all at our wedding. Thank you for celebrating us. We can’t wait to continue writing our love story with you, and for many more years to come!