In the Beginning, There was Meg

You could say our story began in July 1995, even though we wouldn't meet formally until January 2023. You see, that's when Niki met Margaret (a.k.a Meg) Hart, Chris’ older sister and Niki’s co-matron of honor, at Christian Leadership Institute, a week-long Catholic summer camp. From the get-go, the two called each other “spiritual sisters,” and kept in touch for over 20 years, never guessing they would one day become sisters-in-law. Meg swears Niki and Chris met as teenagers, but neither remember that happening.

Fast forward to July 2022. Meg introduced Chris and Niki at their mother’s funeral. Neither was in a good headspace that day—Chris for obvious reasons, and Niki because unbeknownst to her, she would end up in the hospital the next day with three blood clots in her lungs—so neither had romance on their minds.

The third time wasn’t exactly the charm either—although Meg did finally succeed in getting Niki and Chris to go out. Niki didn’t know if the date was a setup or a favor for a friend, but Chris did. Unbeknownst to Niki, Meg had been trying to get the two of them together for the past five years. So they went out to dinner, but the night didn’t exactly go the way either had imagined. Suffice it to say, Chris talked for three hours straight, didn’t make much eye contact, and the waitress came over to see if Niki was okay several times. Chris likes to say that if even he knew he was in his head that night, it was bad. Niki left the first date swearing she’d never see him again.

For his part, once Chris realized the way things had gone, he knew he wanted to try again. “I knew I hadn’t given us a fair chance,” he said. So he texted her again. But she didn’t respond. She was on a book deadline, but failed to tell him that. Since she ghosted him (intentionally or not), he cyberstalked his way back in. He mentioned on Facebook that she had recently gone to see his favorite musical, Les Mis, and used that as a way to get her attention and start the conversation again.

Thank God for Second Chances

“I have no idea why I gave him a second chance,” she said. “Normally I wouldn’t have—I would have just written him off as yet another bad first date. But I’m so glad I didn’t.” They went on a second date when he was in town again. “That date was much better. I realized how intelligent Chris is and it was refreshing to feel like I might have met my match intellectually,” she said. “That is something I’ve always longed for.”

One of the things they talked about on both dates was his love of anime/manga, so they started watching anime over Facetime. (At this time he was living in South Bend and she in St. Louis). During the first call, his then eight-year-old niece Seraphin (a junior bridesmaid in the wedding party), was there. She said, “Even though I’ve known forever that I don’t want kids, seeing how good he was with her really affected me. I knew then he was a good guy and I could trust him.”

These long-distance watch parties went on for two months, with many of their talks lasting well into the night. One night Niki curled up in bed to finish what they were watching and nearly fell asleep. “That was when I knew I liked her as more than a friend,” Chris said. “I knew I wanted to be there with her, by her side.”

“I knew there was something between us,” Niki said, “but I had no idea what it was. It didn’t feel like anything I had ever felt, nor did it feel like what I thought love would feel like. I was very confused.”

They saw each other in person again when he was back in St. Louis. She invited him to her house so they could continue watching Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood together, but this time in person. “I may have had a minor freak out that a boy was coming over to my house,” Niki admitted. “I’d never had a guy over before.” That night, Niki and Chris sat next to each other on her loveseat like two teenagers, bumping elbows and arms until he finally put his hand on top of hers. Their first kiss happened soon after. “That was pretty much it for me,” Niki said. “That was the night we became a couple.”

Been Searching for You

Before he left for South Bend, Niki handed Chris a copy of her book Been Searching for You, which she had written just over a decade before. It is about a 35-year-old-woman named Annabeth’s quest to find her soulmate. “I said to him, ‘If you really want to get to know me, read this book. It’s very personal,’” Niki recalled. “I originally hadn’t intended on publishing that book because it was my way of writing the ‘happily ever after’ I hadn’t experienced yet.” Chris downloaded the audiobook and listened to it on the six-hour drive back to South Bend. “As I read, I started seeing similarities between me and Alex, the male lead character,” he said. “So I was texting her things like, ‘Oh of course, Alex has hazel green eyes and a beard,’ because so do I. But then the similarities went beyond surface things and I texted her, ‘I want it noted for the record that I said some of things these before I even knew this book existed.’”

That was when Niki started re-reading the book, too. “The similarities were really frightening. It was like I manifested him into existence. It became a running joke between us that were going to get W.W.A.W. and W.W.A.D. (“What Would Annabeth Want?” and “What Would Alex Do?”) engraved on our wedding bands.”

Dating and Moving In

The couple dated long distance after that, talking several hours every night. Chris was the first to say, “I love you” on one of his trips back to St. Louis. Niki wasn’t ready to say it back, but he was patient. When she finally did say it, it was by accident. “He said something funny and I meant to say, ‘yes, and that is one of the many things I like about you,” but what came out was ‘yes, and that is one of the many reasons I love you.’ I literally stopped in my tracks and burst out laughing at how it happened. I guess I was ready to say it.”

Not long after, Chris asked Niki to move in with him and she said yes. She visited South Bend for a week at the end of April and Niki officially relocated May 20. She kept her condo in St. Louis just in case things didn’t work out, but both expected it would.

Living together proved remarkably easy, despite some growing pains, mostly on Niki’s part. When Niki returned to St. Louis in late July for work, she realized just how much she had settled into her new life with Chris. “I stayed at my condo and when I walked in I had the weirdest experience. It was like this was a place I knew and I recognized the things, but it was no longer home. That was when I knew I was ready to sell it, that I didn’t need it as a safety net anymore.“ When she returned to South Bend, Niki brought with her a ring containing a family diamond, which both knew would be part of her engagement ring. “Chris had been worrying about how he was going to get it from me when the time came without arousing my suspicion. When I got back to South Bend, I handed it to him and said, ‘for whenever’ because I didn’t want to know when he was going to propose.”

The Engagement

The big day turned out to be September 21, 2023. “I had cooked up this whole elaborate cover story, starting back at the beginning of July,” Chris said. “I took her to the top of the Empire State building in New York City and we saw the Fourth of July fireworks from the top of World One to establish a pattern of us visiting tall buildings together. Then, because I was traveling on her birthday and likely would be on mine as well, I asked her if she wanted to celebrate our birthdays together in September, which is right between hers in August and mine in October. I knew she loved Chicago, so I suggested we have a birthday dinner at the top of the Willis Tower. What almost tripped us up was that dinner was pizza—my favorite food—but Niki thought the price they wanted was too much. I had to convince her that it would be worth it for the view.”

As part of the scheme, Chris concocted their “birthday extravaganza” week, starting on Sunday with a trip into Chicago to get new outfits for their Thursday night dinner. During the week they exchanged little presents and did other small things to celebrate. By the time Thursday rolled around, Niki had her suspicions about what that night was really about. “Even my mom told me not to get my hopes up. I found out later that she knew all along and was trying to throw me off,” she said. They arrived in the city early to pick up Chris’ suit, so the pair killed time by touring the Art Institute and having drinks in the historic lobby of the Palmer House, one of Niki’s favorite spots in Chicago. “By the time our reservation for the tower finally rolled around, I was wondering if I was wrong,” Niki said.

When they stepped out of the elevator at the top floor—which was higher than any of the other buildings they had visited together so far—they found that they were one of only two groups there and they had a private table right on The Ledge overlooking the city. “It couldn’t have been more beautiful or romantic. We hardly saw and never heard the other group—we may as well have had the whole place to ourselves,” Niki recalled. They took pictures of the skyline and lights and stood on the clear ledge looking down on the streets over 100 floors below. “I really thought he was going to ask me then,” Niki confided.

Because he didn’t, the proposal was the last thing on Niki’s mind as they waited for desert to arrive after the main course. “We were talking about our birthday week, and I was looking out over the lights, entranced. Chris said, ‘All this talking of birthdays has me thinking.’ When I turned to him and said, ‘About what, babe?’ he was down on one knee holding out my great-aunt’s ring.”

“Will you spend the rest of your birthdays with me?” he asked.

“Of course, I said yes!”

“The look of shock on her face was perfect,” Chris said. “I was so afraid I wasn’t going to pull it off, but I did.”

And the location was yet another parallel to Been Searching for You. [SPOILER ALERT] At the end of the book, Alex proposes to Annabeth at the Signature Room, a restaurant on the 95th floor of the Hancock Building in Chicago. “That’s not why I did it that way,” Chris insists. “I knew Niki loved Chicago and and since Been Searching for You was about falling in love with Chicago and we both love being at the top of tall buildings, the Willis Tower seemed like the perfect spot.”

While their courtship was fast, by the time the wedding takes place, Niki and Chris will have been dating for almost two years and officially a couple for over a year and half. They’ve had their rough patches, but plan on having a long and happy life together. “I truly believe that wherever she is is home,” Chris said. “I told her she has to live to at least 85 so we can have at least 40 years together.”

“I can’t image a better life,” Niki agreed.