CASEY & CHELSEA

Casey and Chelsea met in December 2017 on a dating app. They were both living in Chicago at the time; Chelsea was there for graduate school, and Casey was starting his career as an electrical engineer in the Chicago suburbs. They were something of opposites — Chelsea was a big-city girl from New York in the social sciences, and Casey was a small-town boy from rural Minnesota in STEM, but they connected on a deep intellectual and spiritual level. However, the pair found they had a shared set of values, life goals, and a love of dogs.

Their first date was in January 2018 at the Chicago Art Institute. When they first met, they would sit in Casey's car after their dates and talk for hours. They loved going out to try new restaurants and bars, listening to live music, and exploring the city. Through their time together, Chelsea learned to love a slower pace of life, and Casey learned the importance of making reservations in a big city.

After three and a half years of dating, including two years of living together in Chicago, Casey proposed in August 2021 on a private boat on the Chicago River at sunset. It was magical! (Though Casey was, unsurprisingly, nervous both about the proposal and because he realized that driving the boat was not as easy as he had been led to believe by the rental company). 

After Chelsea graduated from her Ph.D. program, the pair moved to the Ann Arbor area (Ypsilanti) so Chelsea could be a Professor at the University of Michigan. They have since bought a house where they happily live with their dog, Sansa (a.k.a the Queen of the North).