The story by Sandy:
In selecting a picture for our story, one with a beer seemed appropriate as our first date was at a neighborhood brewery! We met through a mutual friend from business school. On date number two, I learned that Calvin had recently rented out his condo and was shifting to permanent residence in hotels, embracing the consulting life (or something like that). Over the next couple of years our relationship consisted of many flights and exploring cities around the country. I could never quite take it to Calvin's level of 100% living on the road but eventually somewhat embraced the benefits of "following the sun" (aka spending the weekend in the best weather depending on project locations). We both share a love of travel, the outdoors and exploring so that's been a big part of our relationship but the past couple of years (particularly 2020) have been nice to settle down a bit. Calvin returned to Chicago in 2018. Some of our favorite weekend activities now include trips to the dog park, patio relaxing (when weather permits), walks around the city and exploring restaurants.
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From Calvin:
Our first date was at Haymarket brewery in West Loop Chicago in Oct 2015 (We met sort of through a mutual friend we had in common from our business school days. Note: We both scored the same on the GMAT admission test although I studied for it much more than Sandy.)
I remember Sandy telling me on our first date that her significant other must really love dogs, which I thought was strange at the time because there are other qualities I would have picked before that one.
Over the next couple of years, we both traveled extensively for work and saw each other only on weekends in various cities. As our relationship progressed, I moved back to Chicago in 2018 and we moved in together and enjoyed the city of Chicago and also still traveled together to some fun places (wineries, hiking, etc.). Slowly we had more time to spend with each other in the same city especially when Sandy left the consulting / travel job to start up her own company and when COVID hit in 2020 and I stopped traveling as well.
Maybe it is interesting that slowing down and stopping to travel made me realize that Sandy was the one that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We ended up fostering and adopting a dog (Luther) and getting engaged in the summer of 2020. My hopes for a low-cost zoom wedding was foiled when Sandy found a venue that had availability on a convenient holiday weekend, which brings us to now.
We are very happy that we get to celebrate our wedding day with loved ones soon and thanks in advance for sharing your time with us!