Natalie and I met through the dating app Hinge (I was on it for 3 years; she was on it for 3 months...). When she first liked my profile, I looked through hers and decided “what the heck, we’ll see what happens” and boy was I in for the ride of a lifetime.

Since Natalie lived in Madison at the time and I in Minneapolis, we virtually dated for about 3 months which included very long, novel-like messages back and forth alongside several-hour-long video calls. In fact they were so long that in many cases Hinge kicked us off, so we ended up switching to a different app so we weren’t constrained for time.

Finally, in August of 2021 we got to meet in person for the first time at Minnehaha Falls in South Minneapolis. Our plan was to walk around the park and just chat and see how things went. Both of us had plugged about 2 hours into our respective parking meters, but soon that time was gone and instead of calling it quits for the date we re-plugged them for another hour…and then another! During that first date, I don’t think there was a single square foot of that park we didn’t explore and despite the falls not…well…falling due to a major drought it was an incredible first date.

From there we continued to go on about one date per week ranging from visiting breweries and distilleries to hiking to taking in A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie.

In May of 2022, we decided to give living together a shot and planned on doing a trial week to see how well we could cohabitate. I still had two months left on my lease, but after that week I never really went back to my place.

After that step, we kicked traveling into high gear by finishing up my tour of every brewery in Minnesota (214 at the time) as well as visiting a ton of state parks. Soon the travel went even farther with us traveling to Los Angeles for a concert, New York and Maine for Natalie’s graduation from NYU with her Masters in Cyber Security, the Great Smoky Mountains, and then overseas to Denmark where we spent two weeks taking in all the country had to offer.

In October of 2023, we traveled down to Great River Bluffs State Park for what Natalie thought was just another state park hiking day but turned out to be so much more. As we reached the end of the King’s Bluff Trail (which actually has a heart-shaped loop in the center of it) and looked across the ravine to the Queen’s Bluff and the Mississippi River, I proposed. And she said yes!

Now as we look on into the future we can’t wait to see all the adventures that lie in store for us and we know that no matter what, we’ll face any challenge together. Forever and always.

Registry

Gifts are by no means required or necessary, but are greatly appreciated! (Please send to our Minnesota address)