Ryan is actually 2 years younger than Julie, and was best friends in High School with Julie's brother Steven. When Ryan was a freshman, Julie was a senior, and although she had a crush on him, at that point it was just gross and she never mentioned it. To Ryan, she was just the nerdy older sister and the boys would stay up late making fun of her. Little did they know...

Julie went off to college and graduated in 1997. She came back to Madison and worked at the IVCF offices and helped out with the Victory Life Youth Group, as she had in the summers during college. Ryan was a strong member of that Youth Group and he went to an 18 month college (Brown) in Minnesota, and also got done in 1997. We ended up working together as leaders of the Youth Group, and as they spent more and more time together, Ryan finally came around and realized Julie was the one for him. It actually took a heated discussion in which Julie basically laid it on the line that she was in love, but needed to not have Ryan in her life anymore. Well, he couldn't live with that!

Julie and Ryan dated from December 1998 until the November of 2000, when Ryan popped the question on Thanksgiving. Every year the Grahmann's have a little time when the whole family prepares little presentations (poems, songs, puppet shows, plays an instrument), and Ryan wrote a special poem that year. Julie had no idea, and at the very end, he included the proposal in front of the whole family. It was awesome.

This was one of the best days of our life. It went so fast!!! The whole day was planned from November-March while Julie was living in Lake Geneva, WI teaching at Wilmot High School and Ryan was still in Madison. Ryan did all the work, basically. He did an amazing job. We went to Lodi, WI for our Honeymoon and stayed at the Victorian Bed and Breakfast. The whole weekend went by like a flash, but we had the time of our lives.