How We Met
Evan and I met in March 2012 in East Lansing, Michigan, where mutual friends brought us together and we bonded – as true Michigan State Greeks do – over boxed wine, pizza, and love for the Green and White. Every Wednesday, his fraternity and my sorority had an unofficial Wine Wednesday which we regularly attended. Weeks of this went by and we started talking more outside of the sticky floored frat house, and began studying together at the library. I learned of his love for politics and foreign policy, while he listened to my ambitions of being a successful woman in the business world.
After two years of dating, I was offered an amazing opportunity with a Fortune 500 company. Only problem? It was located in Omaha…Nebraska…We decided to try long distance, which was not ideal, but we were confident we could make it work. Luckily, four months later, Evan took a bold career move into the world of business, landing a job with the same company. Our goal was to end up back east in Chicago a few years down the road, but for the time being, we actually loved Omaha and all the amazing people we met there. As life would have it, a year and a half later I found a job I couldn’t refuse in Chicago and Evan once again had to choose between following me or more long distance. His job agreed to promote and move him to their downtown Chicago office if he would stay with the company. A month later we were happily living together.
how they asked
Fast forward a few months to February 2016 in Chicago, IL. We had friends coming into town for Valentine’s weekend, so Evan said he would make it up to me with a romantic dinner and weekend downtown the follow week….Makes sense right? I wasn’t suspicious until he said he was wearing a suit to dinner… that has never happened. Even though he assured me the suit was because we were going to nicer restaurant, just in case (thank god), I bought a dress and had my nails done for the occasion. After arriving to the Drake Hotel in downtown Chicago with a lake view room I got dressed and ready exactly when I was asked to be, which had never happened before, and we were off to an unknown (to me) location.
After a terrifying 20 minute Uber ride and going the wrong direction three times, we finally arrived at our destination….A giant sign that said “Jardine Water Purification Plant”?? Good job Ev, I had sufficiently lost my hopes that he was proposing. What I didn’t realize is that around the corner is one of the best views of the Chicago city skyline located in Milton Lee Olive Park. As we walked through the park, just as the sun was making its descent and the buildings were reflecting the orange and pink horizon, Evan explained that he knows how much I love to take pictures so he found the best place in Chicago to get the skyline while we’re dressed up before dinner. He even let me use a selfie stick – that should have been a dead give-away itself that we truly were just taking some selfies.
Evan then instructed me to face the buildings so he could “get a picture of my silhouette with the skyline”. Now extremely suspicious, my thoughts were greeted with the answer from my love, down on one knee, “Kiersten, turn around. Will you marry me?” He told me I said “yes!”, as I couldn’t remember my exact words and don’t know if I even looked down at the ring at the time because I noticed we were being photographed. He had hired a photographer to capture the wonderful moment, which proceeded into an engagement session with the setting sun and Chicago skyline in the background. Caught up in the fact that I had just gotten engaged, Evan reminded me we still had to go to dinner.
Off again, we had a much safer ride to the John Hancock Center where we received many “looks” for being able to skip the three 60-person lines and head straight up the elevator to the 95th floor(!!) for dinner. We by far had the best view in the house, with Lake Michigan’s waves crashing to the view on our left and the entire city at sunset to our right. As perfect as it was – it was even more beautiful after the sun set and the flickering lights of the lively city sparkled as far as the eye could see. We celebrated with the best filet of my life, a bottle of crisp champagne, a million-dollar-view, and the best man in the entire world to spend forever with.
We had planned to wait and tell our families on Sunday, but were too excited not to call. We opened a bottle of wine and headed back to the Drake Hotel to begin the extremely long night of FaceTiming and recounting the same wonderful story over and over to friends and family alike.
