WHITNEY HEIDI & a

Love Story

Heidi: “I grew up in a small town in westcentral Minnesota and attended the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities for college. I had been accepted as a walk-on on the Gopher softball team, and after a few years of playing, I had the pleasure of meeting Whitney when she joined our team before my senior year. We met late summer of 2009 when I was hanging at my teammate’s apartment. We were waiting for the arrival of the ‘new transfer’ who would be living with them for the year. I will never forget the first day we met; I knew there was something special about her, even before we met, because her name on the ‘new players’ list always stuck out to me. It was definitely a sign.”

Whitney: “We immediately clicked — on and off the field — and I found myself always wanting to be around her. The more time we spent together, the more I started to realize my feelings were more than just friends. By the end of that first semester, I knew I wanted to date her. She was kind, compassionate, funny and athletic, and shared similar interests as me — and I could tell that our values and morals aligned, which was important to me. We spent a lot of time together that semester — and I vividly remember her driving me to the airport to go home to California for Christmas break. I was hoping she’d FINALLY make a move and just kiss me already … she didn’t. I told her she was a chicken — she told me I could have made the first move. But we went on to spend all Christmas break talking to each other, and by the end of the next semester, we were officially dating. Heidi hates this, but I practically forced her to properly ask me out. She was so cute and actually planned a date for us and ‘officially’ asked me out on May 16, 2010.

“I’d like to say the rest is history, but life changes when you get out of college. After I finished graduate school in May 2011, I accepted a job with PepsiCo and had to move to Southern California. By this time, I was already in love with her, so it was excruciating to move across the country and be apart. We tried long distance for 10 months and it really took a toll on me. I knew I couldn’t leave California at that time if I wanted to continue building my career, but it was also creating a lot of tension in our relationship. I knew something had to change. I didn’t want to make Heidi choose between me and her life in Minnesota, so as much as I didn’t want to, I told her we should break up.”

Heidi: “This is the moment I knew I absolutely loved her and I was going to do whatever it took to keep us going. I quit my job, got another job set up in California, packed my tiny car and drove 30 hours across the country to be with her and save what we had created. She was my person and I could not let distance destroy what we had.”

Whitney: “For the next four or so years, she took different jobs in Southern California and Chicago to support me in building my career. I was in a rotational program where I had to move based on where the opportunities were for the first four to five years, so we had agreed that once I finished that program, I’d do what I could to move us back to Minnesota so she could pursue her lifelong dream of going to nursing school. Thankfully, in 2015, that happened: I secured a job in Minnesota that allowed me to move us back and support her.

“Throughout the years, Heidi and I have been able to experience so many incredible things together:

We’ve traveled the world together (and can’t wait to continue doing so, hopefully soon!). We’ve purchased our first and second homes together We’ve navigated cross-country moves, new degrees and several job changes. We’ve celebrated big moments — and we’ve been there for each other in times of sorrow. We’ve grown our family by adding our two dogs, Fozzie and Fletcher. We’ve made new friends and experienced the loss of old friends

“But through all of these life events, one thing has remained consistent — and that’s that Heidi and I remain a team. We don’t always agree — we fight just like the next couple — but we love each other deeply and we genuinely want to support each other’s dreams. To this day, seeing Heidi graduate with her nursing degree is one of my happiest moments — because it was a moment where she achieved a dream, and I got to support her in that endeavor and be a part of her journey.”

After nearly 10 years together, Heidi asked Whitney to marry her and their wedding planning commenced.

Whitney: “I’ll never forget our wedding this past year — it was not what we planned, but it ended up being exactly what we needed.”

Heidi: “We originally had planned for a wedding at a local venue in Minnesota, but when the pandemic hit and we realized a lot of our family, including Whitney’s parents, would not be able to travel in, we opted to postpone our full wedding and reception to 2021. Because we had already planned to get married on 10/10/20, we pivoted to plan a small wedding with a few of our close friends and some of our bridal party who were local. 2020 was our 10th year together, so we loved the concept of getting married on 10/10 during our 10th year together!”

They hosted their small wedding in the beautiful scenic backyard of their new home, hand-making their wedding arch and many other décor elements.

Heidi: “It was a beautiful ceremony led by our good friend Justin. The weather was absolutely perfect (I mean, who doesn’t want 70s and sunny with no wind on their wedding day?). After our ceremony, we had a light lunch and then took our small group to a local winery/ brewery. We had dinner and drinks there, and just hung out outside for the rest of the evening. At the end of the night, we all took the transportation back to our house (rocked out to music the whole way back), and hung out at our house for the rest of the night.

“Considering we finalized the entire day just two weeks before our wedding, we are still amazed with how perfectly it turned out. It was intimate and special — and we were elated to share in the moment at that time. Especially after all the stress of replanning and adjusting, it felt great to just relax and enjoy each other in the company of some of our closest friends.” ♡