Wedding Date on Sep 24, 2022

Patrick and I met the old-fashioned way : ) , on the Bumble dating app. For those of you who don't know about these thrilling apps, Bumble has you enter in specifics you are looking for - from personal info, career, family goals and interests etc. After enough hilariously terrible dates, I narrowed my specifics to guys living within a small radius in the city. As our digital meet-cute would have it, Patrick (who was living far from that radius in Wisconsin at the time) was staying with friends in the city. After matching, my super witty opener was "Hi Patrick, where was that last picture taken?", how could he not be intrigued? We chatted and quickly realized we had a lot of similar interests. Patrick even called me on the phone a few times (which is almost as uncommon as having a landline these days). Not thinking it all the way through, we decided to meet up the weekend of March 16th, 2019, which happens to be the day the city (+ many other Irish enthusiasts) celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in the city. We met on the corner of Clark and Fullerton, and made our way to dinner not knowing what luck that day truly brought to us. A few months later Patrick moved to the city, a few neighborhoods north. He had a new job with Cardinal Health working in partnership with Northwestern Medicine. Which put him at the downtown campus through the year and most of the pandemic. Covid has been very difficult, especially in beginning being separated from family and friends. This was really the time our relationship grew the most and we truly became a partnership. We spent most of the lockdown together cooking, watching movies, virtual workout classes (with wine bottles as weights) and with the addition of our dog Ada, we became her PAC. We joked that we spent most of the beginning of dating acting like an older retired couple. A little backwards, but then even more exciting to have the long overdue introductions to close family and friends and start taking trips together. Patrick planned such a special proposal on a beautiful September day in Lincoln Park. He wanted to surprise me and enlisted the help of my sister Lizzie, who had just moved back to Chicago. The fake plan was to go out to a belated birthday dinner. After a "failed attempt" for a glass of wine at Cafe Brauer before dinner, Lizzie suggested a bridge selfie. In typical sister fashion, Lizzie asked to borrow my sunglasses because “she forgot hers and needed mine”. I wasn’t fazed and let her borrow them. I noticed a photographer taking an engagement shoot. I tried to catch Lizzie’s attention but she was already ahead distracted looking for a stick, that was the marker. Lizzie did a good job distracting/annoying me as she switched sides for a fake selfie as Patrick crossed the bridge. Distracted, I then heard a familiar voice ask to take the picture. As soon as I saw him there looking so dapper, I knew exactly what was about to happen. A few weeks earlier, a little impatiently, I had mentioned I would be happy to be engaged with a ring pop as we had already discussed marriage and wedding plans, just missing the small detail of a ring (which was proving difficult to find). When Patrick got down on one knee he said “I may not have found the perfect ring, but I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you”, and pulled out a ring pop. I am very gullible, but still elated I reached for the ring pop as Patrick said “Oops,wrong pocket.” He pulled out the ring of my dreams and asked me to marry him. The same photographer I had noticed earlier popped up to capture the moment, (see photos tab). Lizzie had to run back through the park in heels to pick up our dog Ada for more pictures around the park. Patrick had arranged for a limo to take us to The London House for a champagne toast and then dinner at our favorite spot, Ada Street. We spent the next week surprising our families with the happy news. See the movie link below to see their fun reactions.