Blake and Larissa met in Bloomington, Indiana! Their joke is that meeting each other was, "the best thing I've found on the internet". Larissa was in her first year of graduate school at Indiana University, while Blake had started his career in Bloomington after graduating from IU in 2016. Blake had been active on the market for a while when he matched with Larissa, who had decided to take a stab at dating again, even going so far as to make a pact with her friend, Kristina, to go on a date by the end of November.

After chatting briefly on the app (with Blake explaining early on that he was "bad at texting" and preferred to meet up), they met at Switchyard Brewery. When Larissa arrived, Blake immediately pushed his beer across the table and asked if Larissa wanted to try it and then got up to get her a drink as well. Unbeknownst to Blake, this was the right move, as Larissa is known to always want to trade bites and sips! Blake was Larissa's first and only online date, so either he had an impressive profile, or it was truly written in the stars.

On Larissa's graduation day, their dog, Strider, had an unfortunate accident while home alone during the ceremony. Luckily, he made a full recovery but it took a lot of time and dedication on the parts of Larissa and Blake. This sad event cemented their partnership and became the start of a life together.

A few months later, they were moving to Madison, Wisconsin in pursuit of new jobs and adventure! While moving away from friends and family has been incredibly difficult, this move brought Blake and Larissa even closer, forging them into their own small family unit.

The culmination of their partnership was reached on Christmas Day, 2024, when Blake proposed, which leads us to today! It is with overwhelming love, gratitude, and joy, that we look forward to a lifetime together. We can't wait to spend our day with all of our loved ones and get to share some of our love story with you.

- Blake and Larissa