To get our full story, we have to go back to the beginning. We met in college and I was hooked right from the start. We were friends all through college, constantly hanging out, even though I SECRETLY wanted more. I never fully expressed myself which stuck with me for a long time. I had let a great girl go without even giving myself a chance. I moved away and we drifted apart and did not talk for about 10 years. Then one fateful night happened and we were given a second chance at a first try. I was out in Chicago when my friend Nick thought it would be a good idea to take my phone and set me up on Tinder. Well, in order to do that he had to create a fake Facebook account. He did and I awoke the next morning with a fake Facebook account and the Tinder app on my phone (he did all this without my knowledge). In the midst of him commandeering my phone, he did one thing that would change everything. He turned Facebook notifications on. I was sitting in the living room one day and got an alert from that fake Facebook account I didn’t know I had. It was a friend request from Rachel. She had been exhaustingly looking for me while I had been thinking about her. I accepted the request and after a couple days I got a message that said, “Is this Nithan Michels?” (she called me that because she always said that’s how I say it) that then took me a couple days to respond to (I was unaware that you had to have Facebook messenger to talk to friends) and we reconnected. We had our second chance at a first try. It felt right from the start and we haven’t stopped talking since. I was not going to let her go this time without telling her how I felt and we exchanged I love you’s a couple months after reconnecting. Our friendship that was so cherished in college became a relationship that we treasured more than we could ever imagine. Ours may be a little longer than most with some extra whitespace in the middle, but we had our storybook and can’t wait to live happily ever after.

I heard a long time ago, you never ask a question you don't know the answer to. Well, I was pretty sure I knew what the answer was going be, but that did not calm my nerves at all. I am unclear on why this was so, but it was. I knew I wanted to ask, I wanted to ask Rachel for a long time, it was just a matter of when. Sooner was better if for no other reason than we could start our lives together quicker. I decided at sunset on Lake Geneva would be great. I am no great planner, so planning an engagement worthy of Rachel was quite a feat. Closer to the date, the forecast was not good. It was going to be cold and rainy so I had a nice little bout of anxiety. I didn’t know what I was going to do if the weather was bad because the whole plan hinged on being outside at sunset. So, I went to the dollar store and bought these fake rose petals and candles and just hoped against all hope I would not have to use them. Saturday, October 20th started out freezing cold and windy. The sun was peeking through a bit, but not near enough for a magical proposal. After shopping all day we went to a brewery which only increased my anxiety. I kept asking Rachel if she was OK, which was probably a bit alarming seeing as we only had a beer, but I could not do anything to jeopardize her ability to utter that one little phrase that would change our lives forever. I pushed us out the brewery after a beer and we went back to the hotel. By this time the sun was out and the magical plan was happening. We went out on the balcony and watched the sunset. I only got up 3 or 4 times in about 30 minutes to walk around. I was trying to remember all the things I wanted to say to Rachel and could not tell you if they came out or not. I was shivering; either because of the cold or the nerves or both. All I knew was I had to get to will you marry me quickly. So I dropped to a knee and she said yes. She looked at the ring and I knew I made the right decision. Her smile was something I will never forget.