When it all began...

Jacob and I first met in August of 2020 at our Resident Advisor (RA) orientation while attending undergraduate school at the University of Minnesota Duluth. We quickly formed a great group of friends through our campus team taking every opportunity to be active - playing ultimate fribee, football, volleyball, or spikeball and waking up at 6am for a few trail runs. During this time, I gave Jacob the nickname Jake (oddly he never had this nickname), and we grew closer.

Jacob and I realized we had many interests, values, and beliefs in common growing up in the country. We both valued time with family, friends, and neighbors balanced with a desire to fulfill our passions, mine being medicine and Jacob's being software development.

I love walking and being active, and Jacob, being the sweet man that he is, would accompany me on these walks where we really started to form a connection discussing our faith, verbally working through and fixing one another's immediate and long-term problems, and making plans for the future. We still continue these walks, and it has made our relationship stronger as we daily set aside protected time for one another when we are together.

As all great love stories go, while on a family Christmas vacation to Italy, Jacob and I took our morning walk stopping at the Gentile Cafè for a cappuccino, and then walking down to the harbor rocks of Sorrento, Italy. While on the rocks, Jacob got down on one knee and asked for my hand in marriage. I will never forget him saying, "I spent a lot of time preparing for this moment and thinking of the exact words to say, but you look so happy and beautiful right now, I don't even know what to say except will you marry me."

And that is where our love story rests until August 10th when we say "I do."