Our Story
*Quick Disclaimer*
We wrote these completely separately and only compared our stories once we were finished. We are in awe ourselves of all of the similarities 😂
As told by Esme —
On a snowy day in February 2020, I was sitting at my desk in Chicago debating whether to cancel the Hinge date I was supposed to go on that night. Don’t get me wrong, he was really cute and seemed nice enough over text…but it had been a long day, it was snowing, and I was very much not in the mood.
“Fine,” I sighed, "I'll go for one drink." I grabbed an umbrella and started my short, three-block walk to the date.
As the snow quickly became a sleet-snow-blizzard, my umbrella caught a gust of wind, blew open, and immediately broke. “WTF!!," I thought as I speed-walked with my eyes closed, praying my makeup wasn't getting ruined.
I walked into the restaurant 10 minutes late, very disheveled and sopping wet. I spotted Mike at the bar, tried to laugh it off, and sat down for our first date. Little did I know, this would be my last first date ☺️.
A few weeks later, COVID began changing the world. Chicago shut down, and our date nights quickly became weekend stretches spent quarantining together. We went for long walks, played too much scrabble, binge-watched Tiger King, and ate lots of dinners cross-legged at each of our coffee tables.
Mike was easy to fall in love with and is even easier to stay in love with. He is a problem-solver and a pattern-lover who thinks three steps ahead. He has the warmest heart and the sweetest soul. He can explore any topic at length, and he has a brilliant sense of humor.
My mother used to say that nobody could make me laugh like my sister does. Until she met Mike. And Mirette, if you’re reading this, you still make me laugh harder for the record 😂 but to be fair, you do have a 22-year head start.
Since those cooped-up days of COVID, Mike and I have hiked the Grand Canyon, spent a month in Europe, and road-tripped through California, where Mike proposed to me on the ocean in San Diego. We’ve been to 7 countries and 15 states together, but my favorite place in the world is cuddled up with Mike (and our puppy Florence, of course) at home.
Mike, you make me a more creative, more curious, more loving, more “me” version of myself, and I cannot wait to spend the rest of my days with you. You are the love of my life! This is going to be fun.
As told by Michael —
If you knew me before Esme, you know that I had been looking for her for a long time. And if you know Esme at all, you know it doesn’t take long to discover what an incredible and beautiful person she is. On a snowy evening a couple weeks before COVID shut down the world, we had our first date. After parting ways with a slightly awkward first kiss, Esme will claim she thought the date didn’t go nearly as well as I thought it did, but I still don’t believe her 😉. I was wowed, although admittedly, it was an awkward first kiss.
Nevertheless, over our next few dates, I grew increasingly confident that I may have found “her”. It was so easy to get along, talk endlessly and learn about each other, which was an especially good thing given we were about to quarantine together for many months. We binged shows, met each other’s friends and families, and fell in love.
We’ve since hiked the Grand Canyon on Thanksgiving Day, toured Europe, moved in together and recently adopted our first daughter – Florence (our puppy, for those who haven’t met her yet). I can’t wait for all the adventures yet to come and look forward to sharing the most special day yet with the people who we care about the most.
And here we are!
These are some of our favorite memories so far.
