~Our Story~
Theo met Roni while he was getting his degree in Geography at UNC Greensboro and studying abroad for the Fall 2021 semester at the University of Oulu in Oulu, Finland. Theo originally hails from Catawba, North Carolina (though was more practically raised in Hickory, NC).
Roni met Theo while he was studying Information Technology at the Oulu University of Applied Science (which is connected by a hallway to the University of Oulu). Roni originally hails from Tampere, Finland.
Theo landed in Finland on August 27th and he matched with Roni on Tinder a week-and-a-half after that. After meeting in-person for the first time on September 10th, 2021, Roni and Theo spent every minute possible together. Things were going well enough that they agreed they would like to get married, while standing in Theo’s very small dorm room, located near the University of Oulu campus.
On November 10th–a mere 2 months after they started dating–Roni and Theo got engagement/wedding rings (that they kept a secret from even their families until several months later).
When Theo had to return to the States at the end of 2021, they continued to talk daily, amassing hundreds of hours of talk time on WhatsApp. (They are both very thankful for the free long-distance calling capabilities of the app, without which they would have had to sell a kidney or two.)
During the first half of 2022, Theo graduated from UNC Greensboro in May, and Roni made his first trip to the States in May-June to visit and see the sights.
After Roni returned to Finland, he started at the Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences, where he had transferred over the summer.
After Roni returned to Finland, Theo job-hunted and figured out next steps for life in general. Then, in August, his sister, Andrea, pointed out the very obvious notion that he could just move to Finland and live with Roni (which had somehow never occurred to him). So he did that. He now works remotely for his mom, Lori Barklage, as an Administrative Assistant for her business.
Finally, Theo and Roni were reunited after months apart at the end of October, 2022 and married December 21st. They have been very happily living together since then in their apartment in Jyväskylä, Finland.