We met the old fashioned way. A beautiful maiden selected the most charming and handsome suitor out of a vast field of strapping candidates - a match made in heaven on okcupid.com.

We had agreed to meet for the first time at the student center in Madison. I walked from my apartment to get there through a chilly wind in March, not ideal for a romantic stroll into town. Needing to collect myself before meeting my bride-to-be, I walked right past her without acknowledging her; she had been waiting for me on a bench nearby. Luckily, she was still there waiting when I returned. "Are you Sam?" I asked.

We walked along Lake Mendota into town. The wind didn't let up. I told Sam she was brave to be out walking in the chilly weather while getting over a cold. We exchanged more pleasantries.

Dinner was lovely. We got burgers at Dotty Dumpling's Dowry, a burger joint in Madison. Sam ate exactly half of her burger, and I had to restrain myself from finishing the rest of it. After eating my own entirely, I went to wash up again in the men's room. That's when I discovered a sesame seed plastered on my left cheek. How in the world did it get way up there? How long had it been there? I confronted Sam about it when I got back to the table. She said she'd hoped it would fall on its own. Why stir the pot? I liked this girl.

We split the check. We took the bus home. To our surprise, we got off at the same stop. We exchanged numbers and went back to our respective apartments. To validate the number she gave me, I sent her a text with a photo taken from my German etymological dictionary: "Knopp/Knopf - a button; bud; knot; belongs to the group of dense objects beginning with 'kn-.'" So impressed was she by this insight into her genealogical fabric, she wanted to see me again very soon.

Scarcely has a day gone by since then that we haven't been together. Not a day has gone by that I haven't known in my heart that Sam Knopp was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

It was a cold and windy day in Iceland, and we had big plans to hike through an old lava field to summit a dormant volcano. Little did I know, this wasn’t just any dormant volcano that we’d stumbled upon and Joel had bigger plans up his sleeve. Per our usual way of doing things, the day did not go off without a hitch. Joel was slow in getting ready, as he struggled to come up with a way to get the ring into his pack without me noticing. When the excuse he brilliantly came up with was to ask if it was okay to clip his fingernails before the hike, I (with my usual patient demeanor) became annoyed at the delay, and a small tiff ensued. The first 20 minutes of the hike were spent in icy silence. However, we soon became lost in the disorienting lava fields (the map was forgotten in the aforementioned drama), and were forced to reconcile for the cause of making it to the volcano. We never did make it to the volcano on foot, but managed to make it back to our camper van, and proceeded to drive to our destination. We climbed to the top, Joel triumphantly pulled out the ring that he had managed to slip into his pack, I of course said yes, and we are now anxiously awaiting the chance to celebrate with all of you!