Tell me what brought you together : We grew up in the same city, but did not meet each other until High School. Even then, we knew of each other and had friends in common, but did not connect until college. We attended colleges 10 minutes from each other and connected with each other again. Shortly after, we began dating and the rest is history!

Why did you decide to get married?: Matthew shared – We had already been having the conversation for years about getting married, the right timeline, etc. At this point, I think we wouldn’t even have been engaged yet based off that old timeline. Despite this admittedly long timeline, we were fully committed to eventually making it to the marriage “milestone.” At the beginning of the pandemic, we were both forced home into Zoom University, Zoom Work, and Zoom everything else. We were quite literally with each other every hour of every day throughout the pandemic until we slowly returned to in-person work. Before this, we were often seeing each other for a short time in the evenings and weekends due to school and work constraints. For me, this time showed that without all other distractions and commitments pulling at me, I was fully content and happy with giving Katharine all of my time, all of my energy, and all of my love for the rest of our lives. In a sense, it was a forced look at what life might be like in the future post-employment, post-children moving out, etc. and all you might have is each other. Thanks to that opportunity I can know without a doubt that I will be happy with Katharine as my partner for the rest of my life.

What are your top 5 things to do together?: Exploring the area we live, traveling, trying different restaurants, watching stand up comedy, and making candles.

What are 3 values that you two share? : Patience, Growth, and Compassion.