The two of us met when we were in our junior year of high school, 16 years old. We were both active users on a gaming website where we shared many mutual online friends with whom we gamed, video chatted and shared our lives every day. Eventually, we ended up developing crushes on each other despite only knowing each other through a computer screen. We officially considered ourselves dating January 8, 2015.

We first met in person in August of 2015 after convincing our parents to let us meet. Grace and her mom drove 8 hours to Chicago, and Zach and his parents and sister made the trek in 2 and a half. The first time we saw each other was truly magical - everyone else just faded away and we only had eyes for each other. We still laugh because our first kiss was on the corner of the road... in front of the Chili's... and in front of our family members. Oh well, circumstances could have been worse.

Grace committed to Marquette University the following year and made plans to move to Milwaukee, which would bring her closer to Zach as he stayed with his parents in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, his hometown, and went to the local University of Wisconsin campus there. Throughout college, Zach visited Grace in Milwaukee on the weekends as often as he could. When we got closer to graduating and moved into our own apartments, we were able to spend even more time together as we made the trek both ways between Green Bay and Milwaukee, after Zach transferred to UW there.

Finally, Zach graduated in the winter of 2019 and quickly landed a job in Waukesha, meaning we could finally move in together. We settled in just days before our fifth anniversary in Milwaukee, while Grace continued her last semester at Marquette, with our old cat Simba, who passed away of kidney issues in March 2020. After graduating, Grace got a job working remotely, and we decided to adopt our next cat, Noelle, in June of 2020.

Even though the pandemic has caused us a lot of pain and frustration with wedding planning and family events, we are so happy to have made it this far considering we were just kids with 700 miles between us just seven years ago. Those years have gone so fast, but we still are just as in love as we were on day one, and we can't wait to see what adventures we can find during our married years.