Our Story

Brent and I met through a mutual friend, Andy Atchison. Brent grew up with Andy and I attended college with him. Last summer Andy and my best friend, Andrea (Randt) Belseth, along with their spouses, got together for a night out. During the outing, they had a conversation about their single friends. Andrea mentioned my name and Andy mentioned Brent's name. A few weeks later while Andrea and I were running around Lake Calhoun, she mentioned her get together with the Atchisons and their conversation. Somewhat interested in what I heard curiosity took over and I did a search for Brent on the internet (Facebook). The search came up with way too many Brent Ness' that I gave up the search.

Then in the fall of 2007, the conversation about Brent resurfaced between Andrea and I. So again I looked Brent up on Facebook, decided to pick the first Brent Ness I saw, and on a whim wrote him an email simply stating, 'Do you know Andy Atchison?". That's where our relationship began. We had a 'cyber' (which my brother liked to call it) relationship for quite a while until we finally graduated into phone conversations. :o) Over the next few months we had many fun dates some of which were: Our first date at the Cheesecake Factory (good geographical meeting place between Chaska and St. Paul), our 4th date at Joe Sensors to watch the Vikings play (didn't really watch much of it), and our 5th date at Chino Latino in Uptown (where we FINALLY shared our first kiss *In the parking ramp*!). We've spent as much time together as possible ever since.

We feel so blessed that God brought us together and know that even though it may have taken 27 years, it was definitely worth the wait!

We're engaged!! On July 27,2008 (oddly enough my license plate number is MRS 727)

How he did it: We had always talked about re-living some of our past favorite dates sometime and on July 27th I had gotten the day off, so we thought it would be the perfect Sunday to do it. After church that morning we went to Joe Sensors for lunch. We talked about our 4th date and how it was so special and reminisced that that's when we really started things going again (2nd and 3rd dates weren't really that great because we didn't get a chance to get to know each other-ie movie *action* and a comedy show). After Joe sensors we headed to the Mall of America because Brent was on the hunt for a new sport coat (this wasn't really a part of the plan).

I didn't know this at the time, but Brent had the ring in his pocket the whole day and never once did I see him check on it!

After many hours of shopping, we got hungry again and headed to Uptown to where our 5th date was--Chino Latino. We sat in the exact same place and ordered the same drinks, ate some of the same food we had on the first date...and even relived our first kiss. When our sweet tooth kicked in we went to the Cheesecake Factory, grabbing two slices of cheesecake almost as soon as we walked in, and headed back to Chaska.

Here's where the proposal comes in...Brent is always such a romantic guy, so when he put on Angel by Dave Matthews (first song we ever slow danced to) into the player, I didn't think anything of it. When he asked me to slow dance to it with him, I was still oblivious. All of a sudden, while we were dancing in my living room, Brent was down on one knee asking me to marry him! I didn't even realize he had already slipped the ring on my finger! I honestly don't remember what he exactly said, but I know I said yes! He had asked my parents a few weeks before. :o)