From Sthephany's point of view
I first met Seth in June of 2016. I was a senior at East High School in Green Bay, Wisconsin. At the time, I was asked to be the varsity football team manager. I happily agreed to this role, though I had no idea what it entailed, or that I would meet the person I would marry and spend the rest of my life with.
For three months, every day of the summer, and let me tell you, it was hot and sunny, I filmed Seth as he practiced receiving the ball from the quarterback as the fullback of the team. I had no idea what I was filming. I just remember clicking start and stop over and over for hours while the man I would marry caught the ball and reset his stance.
I had no idea what I was filming, or that I would meet the person I would marry.
It was not until August that I had my first verbal encounter with him. He had gotten injured during practice, and I decided to offer him my food from Green Tea because I felt bad for the poor injured football player. If you knew him then, you knew how picky he was. He looked at me with a weird side-eye and said, No, thank you. I later learned he was not mad at me; he was worried that he was truly injured, which he was not.
The months went by, and our conversations were very brief. I was just the football manager, after all.
Fast-forward a year later to September of 2017. I started getting invited to Packers game watch parties with a group of guys from the football team, and I started attending. Eventually, the quiet and shy Seth most people know started coming out of his shell.
One day, when I was driving the guys back to their cars after a Packers game watch party, I looked in my rearview mirror, and there he was. Seth was still sitting in the back seat of my car. Surprised, I asked him if he needed something and why he was still in my car, considering everyone else had left. He said his car was not in the same area as the rest of the group and asked if I could kindly drop him off a few blocks down.
If you know anything about me, I hate awkward silence, so the first question that came to mind was, So, do you have a girlfriend? Seth responded by saying, I am talking to a girl at school. I asked her name, and he said Natalia. I instantly knew exactly who she was because she happened to be another girl from Colombia, from my hometown, who knew my family.
So the weeks went by, and we stayed in touch. His relationship later ended, and so did mine. We continued as friends. I started college in September of 2017, and Seth was beginning his junior year of high school.
He started coming over to my house, and I could not believe it. He actually followed all the million rules I had for how to be proper and respectful in a Hispanic household, how to greet my parents, yes, waking them up if they were sleeping, despite how uncomfortable it made him, and how he had to pretend to like the food they made and at least swallow it.
Despite his picky eating at the time and his lack of being Hispanic, because he is a white boy from Wisconsin, after all, my parents actually liked him, and he also chose to keep coming back to my house. I was quite surprised.
So, there you have it. We grew closer and closer by the day, and on June 24, 2018, he took me to the Bay Park Square Mall, bought me a Build-A-Bear, and asked me to be his girlfriend.
Since September of 2017, we have not gone a day without talking. I moved to Milwaukee in 2021, and we had a long-distance relationship while he finished his undergraduate degree in Green Bay. He then moved to Milwaukee, and we lived together for three years before he moved to St. Louis to attend optometry school.
Since September of 2017, we have not gone a day without talking.
We are currently in a long-distance relationship, but each day we talk on the phone reminds us how perfect we are for each other and how much we love each other.
On January 11, 2026, Seth proposed to me by the lake in downtown Milwaukee. Of course, I said yes. I cannot wait to marry my other half. He is the best man a girl could ask for, and I am so excited to continue our life journey together.
Oh, and if you were wondering, Seth chose to have our destination wedding in Colombia. He loves Colombia and has embraced being Colombian since the early days when I met him, especially after I took him to Colombia for the first time in 2019.
Seth speaks Spanish, listens to salsa, cumbia, urbano-pop, rap, and everything in between, and does not miss a chance to wear one of his many Colombian soccer jerseys. I love that about him, his love for my birth country and his acceptance of my heritage culture.
Thank you for reading our love story up to this point. I hope you can join us in continuing to write the next chapter of our lives as we celebrate our marriage.
I love that about him, his love for my birth country and his acceptance of my heritage culture.
From Seth's point of view
At the point in time I am writing this, it has now been a decade since I first met Stheph. As cute as that sounds, I didn’t really know her ten years ago. At that point in my life, football was basically everything to me. I knew our high school team had some “managers” but I didn’t know them besides that they filmed us for practice (the game film was not nearly as good…). However, during one of our summer practices I took a helmet to the knee and hyperextended it. This relegated me to watching the rest of practice from a treatment table that had been moved outside. I, sitting alone with sunburnt feet, was silently fuming because, at the time, I hated anything that took me away from the game I loved so much. However, during a break the managers offered me some food, and that was my first true interaction with my future wife.
As the cliché goes, we were two ships passing in the night. Outside of that encounter we didn’t really talk until another year later. Again, football was at the center of us meeting again. I was now a junior in high school and she was a freshman in college. She was dating another player on the team (oh no!), and attended all the games. Unfortunately, I broke my hand at a game on my dad’s birthday. At the game the next week, her boyfriend didn’t take a picture with her, but I did despite not playing. Her and the other guy broke up shortly after because apparently they weren’t a match. Anyway…I still have the picture of me with my sad broken hand and this really cute girl even if she was just a friend.
Later that fall, I went over to her parents house to hang out and watch Finding Nemo. Despite how fun it was, there were (to me) all these crazy rules. I remember having to say hello and embrace each person and the same thing when leaving no matter what time or how busy they were. I believe this was initially in English, but quickly became Spanish which I knew only the very basics. Despite how obviously awkward I must’ve been at this, her parents seemed to think I was alright. I probably would’ve done whatever was asked of me because all I wanted to do was hangout with her. Over those several months, she doted on me, likely due to my broken hand, and our friendship grew.
In June of that next year, we went on an official date and labeled our relationship. At that point, I was all in. She supported me through all my remaining high school and eventually college endeavors. It seems like at that time people came and went, but she was always my anchor to rely on. It was the first time someone really pushed on me to be more than I was. I have grown immensely as a person and feel Stheph is the primary reason for that. If not for her, I may likely still be in Green Bay instead of Saint Louis pursuing my realized corporate dreams.
I'd like to thank my future wife for exposing me to everything I've come to love. Because of her, I have experienced new food, music, culture, and places. Together, we have a 4-year-old daughter named Lyla (dog, not human) for whom I love more than I could imagine. Despite the current distance between us, I know home is wherever we can be together. I couldn't imagine life without her and am a better person for everything she has ever done.
