Ryan and Nicole met at a local pizza place in Maysville, NC on a Tuesday in March of 2017. It was halfway between New Bern and Jacksonville, a fair meeting point.

The couple bonded over oven fresh pizza in the small little restaurant. They talked about favorite Disney movies and what they wanted to do in life. For Nicole, she realized immediately the connection between them. She always dreamed of meeting someone with similar ideas and ambitions. The couple spent a few hours talking into the evening, and Ryan asked to see Nicole again that weekend.

From then on, Ryan and Nicole went on a series of dates and not much later, Ryan asked her to be his girlfriend.

When the couple met, Ryan was a Marine, and lived about 40 minutes away. So they shared the driving distance and saw each other twice a week, and soon, when Ryan was done with his time as a Marine, he moved in with Nicole before moving to Iowa.

Ryan wanted to go back to school to pursue an engineering degree, and after much time deciding on where to go, he landed on Iowa, and asked Nicole to go with him.

Excited at the opportunity to move West, Nicole happily agreed, and the couple moved to Ames, IA at the end of October of 2017.