About
Some of you know both of us, but some of you may not know one of us — or at least not know us well. To that end, here is a little bit about each of us and how we came to be a couple.
Meet Austin
Austin James Ingram entered this world on January 10th 2002 to parents Todd and Amy in Petawawa, Ontario where he was raised as an only child — he feels obligated to have it known that he was technically born in Pembroke Hospital, but it’s 20 minutes away so the technicality is irrelevant. Throughout his childhood, his parents found him to be full of curiosity and energy. His mother’s favorite thing he did in his childhood was when he would exclaim “this is the BEST day of my life!!” after something happy happened. As a kid, he loved watching (and sometimes playing) many sports, namely hockey, football (soccer), and mixed martial arts.
When he was 14, he was peer pressured into joining his school’s track and field team. He quickly proved his friends correct and won his first (and all following) national championships two years later in 2018. His enthusiasm in track continued until he ran in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — that actually took place in 2021 — and placed 10th in the world despite significant injury (that he probably shouldn’t have run with, but we can deal with that in our 40s).
While he was still actively pursuing track, Austin began writing fiction fantasy online under a pseudonym. The more he wrote, the more he fell in love with the craft and he is now working towards being professionally published once he finishes a draft of his novel later this year.
Austin is a fan of many fantasy and fiction series including A Song of Ice and Fire (better known as A Game of Thrones) by George R.R. Martin, the Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien, the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss, and the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (and finished with help from Brandon Sanderson). Though he doesn’t watch many TV shows or movies, Austin is a new fan of the BBC show Doctor Who.
Austin fell in love with Bronwyn because of her incredible compassion and her support of him.
Meet Bronwyn
Bronwyn Mae Alexia Hoffman entered this world on March 27th, 2001 to parents Jason and Alexia. She was born in Fairbanks, Alaska. The family soon moved to Florida, where they spent the first four years of Bronwyn’s life with her aunt and paternal grandparents. Following the completion of their bachelor’s degrees In 2005, Jason and Alexia made the choice to moved to Oregon, intent on being closer to Bronwyn’s uncle and maternal grandparents. The family grew in 2006 with the addition of Bronwyn’s younger sibling Kellen. Throughout her childhood, her parents found her to be independent and adventurous, yet kindhearted. She loved reading fiction and fantasy from a young age — especially the books from her great-grandmother’s book collection — which wound up being quite handy for her and her husband down the road.
Bronwyn realized in her teenage years that while she loved reading and working with words, she did not share the passion of her peers in writing fiction. With that in mind, she furthered her education at Portland Community College with the intention of possibly following her mother into the field of nursing. She received two associates degrees in March, 2022, which was right around the time her shared nerdiness with Austin helped her realize that she could make a career for herself working with other people’s words. Through many long, bantering hours debating over sentences and stories, the dynamic between her and Austin nurtured a passion for creating web content as well as scholarly articles.
She is currently working on her Bachelor’s of Professional Writing at Oregon Tech and hopes to graduate in December of 2024. After graduating, she is looking to enter into technical writing, marketing for an organization that works in public service, or editing and designing texts for healthcare education.
Bronwyn adores many fantasy and fiction books, including The Belgariad series by David and Legh Eddings, The Dragon Prince series by Melanie Rawn, The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss, and the Dragonriders of Pern trilogy by Anne McCaffery. Her and Austin have read several of these series by side, during long drives and while lying awake long into the night, making snarky comments all the while.
Bronwyn has been to over half a dozen Indigo Girls concerts, which led to the band being featured prominently on wedding-related playlists and themes. Her favorite movie is either 50 First Dates or Juno.
Bronwyn fell in love with Austin because of his unending support and amazing companionship.
Our Story
Austin and Bronwyn met when Bronwyn joined a writing forum that Austin frequented after reading some of his work. At the start of their then friendship, Austin found Bronwyn to be incredibly nice and helpful, but also incredibly irritating as she was constantly pointing out grammatical and technical errors in his writing and publishing. Over time, Austin allowed Bronwyn to help him by editing his work and managing the publishing and posting of it on various platforms. In exchange, Bronwyn used her work with Austin to find her true calling in technical writing and design. This working relationship led to many conversations between the two that inevitably turned into a very close friendship, despite the thousands of miles between them.
At the end of April in 2022, Bronwyn took her first visit to Petawawa. She had begun the process of getting her passport a year before in the hopes of someday traveling internationally. For Christmas, Austin told Bronwyn that the next time she wanted to travel, “pick the place and the flights are on me”. Bronwyn instantly picked going to see Austin in person, and the trip marked a turning point in their relationship. Over the course of the week she was there, Bronwyn and Austin went on countless not-dates to local restaurants, learned how to be the most comfortable by leaning into the other person while watching TV or just chatting, and figured out how to communicate when there wasn’t a keyboard in front of them. The change in their dynamic was most obvious when Austin told Bronwyn that he loved her — but not yet in a romantic way — for the first time as they said goodbye.
Austin and Bronwyn did not stay apart for long, however, as they embarked on a three week long road-trip with two of their closest friends — Charlie and Noah — just 2 months later at the start of July. The four had lots of fun adventures and made many amazing memories as they traveled the southwest together. The group visited Las Vegas, Yosemite, Sequoia, Joshua Tree, the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, and Arches National Park. After Charlie flew out of Las Vegas, Austin, Noah, and Bronwyn took a quick trip to California to visit an amusement park before Noah flew out of Los Angeles. As their friends departed the duo, Austin and Bronwyn found that they were not ready to end their journey and embarked on their own secondary trip through California.
The still-not-yet a couple traveled from Los Angeles to San Diego, making a quick stop at Universal Studios to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. They then worked their way back north to Los Angeles, then to Morro Bay for its aquarium, and finally to San Francisco to return the rental car and catch a train back to Portland, where Bronwyn lived with her family. During this part of the trip, Austin and Bronwyn shared hotel rooms, went to amazing restaurants, were in a car talking for hours on end, and still did not become a couple.
Austin and Bronwyn would next meet in person that winter, when Austin and Noah flew to visit Bronwyn’s college town for a belated Christmas celebration on New Year’s with her and her best friend Pandora. After Pandora and Noah returned to their lives, Austin once again stayed for an extended period. It was growing harder for the two to be apart, and they were very aware they got along much better in person than they did online. After cancelling his flight twice because of “food poisoning”, Austin went home with a promise to visit soon.
Bronwyn had no idea how soon, though, as Austin decided to try and surprise her by flying in for her birthday that March. His hopes of a surprise were dashed by a pesky thing called logistics, but Austin decided to continue his plans to visit Bronwyn and flew in to Oregon on Saint Patrick’s day. The two continued not-dating in the restaurants of Bronwyn’s college town and became known regulars of their favorite pub, the Pikey.
In mid-April, the two began to acknowledge their now mutual attraction — Bronwyn had been hopelessly in love with Austin since the trip through California. Before they were able to begin a relationship, life decided to repeatedly intervene with two back-to-back car accidents, and two back-to-back deaths of people the couple were incredibly close to. Recovering and grieving, the couple supported each other without making their relationship official until that fall.
On October 8th, the duo had their first official date night as a couple, and the next month Austin gave Bronwyn a promise ring on November 11th. Less than 30 days later, the couple was once again separated when Austin went back to spend Christmas at home with his family. The couple struggled immensely with being apart and frequently lamented how far away the other was. Austin once again flew in with Noah to have a belated Christmas and New Year’s with Bronwyn and Pandora, but could not bring himself to leave once the holidays were over.
In early February of 2024 the couple decided that, to prevent another separation, they would get married much sooner than planned and began telling their family to expect a small wedding, technically an elopement, with just parents, siblings, and grandparents in April. Meanwhile, Austin began searching for the perfect engagement ring.
Austin proposed two weeks before the wedding at the couple’s favorite restaurant, Rooster’s Steak and Chop House, where they later had their reception dinner after the elopement. The engagement couldn’t have been possible without the support of their amazing friends, family, and the incredible wait staff at Rooster’s. After a failed attempt to hand off the ring, the couple’s favorite waitress, Katie, pulled Bronwyn aside to look at table arrangements while Scott, the couple’s favorite waiter, grabbed the ring from Austin. When Bronwyn returned to the table, the couple ordered dessert — a slice of cheesecake for Austin… and a mini drumstick ice cream for Bronwyn, When dessert arrived, Katie made a comment of the dessert being “the fanciest drumstick you’ll ever eat”.
Thinking nothing of the comment but it remarking on the price and establishment, Bronwyn waited several minutes for Austin to begin eating his cheesecake but eventually gave up waiting for him and turned to her ice cream so it wouldn’t melt. Instead of finding her ice cream, Bronwyn found her dream engagement ring — nestled perfectly inside a shell on top of the cone. Austin got down on one knee and the rest is history! (And yes, Bronwyn’s ice cream was admittedly melted and the cone soggy when she got to it.)
The couple still plans to have a larger wedding ceremony in Canada where they had originally planned to get married, when they will invite all of their extended family and friends to celebrate with them.
Austin and Bronwyn 