In December 2021, two families in completely different parts of the world planned a family trip to Rome, Italy for the Christmas holidays. The O’Connors picked a small apartment in the city to host their daughters. The Sjøli’s planned a happy reunion with their Italian family.

Darcy McMillan travelled to Rome with her sister, Madalyn, for Christmas. Their bonus sister, Giulia, travelled from Germany to meet them there also! The three girls were together again!

Sander travelled with his family to visit extended family that lived in Rome. After a family friend got sick with Covid, Sander moved to a hotel near the O’Connor apartment.

Both being in their 20s and bored, they both went on the same dating app and ended up matching. Wow!

Giulia and Darcy met Sander one night in a wine bar down the street from the apartment and they hit it off! For the next few days they met and Sander and Darcy got to know each other better. On his last day in Rome before returning to Norway, Darcy wrote him a note saying she hoped to meet him again.

Everyone returned to their respective homes and life drifted back to normal, except for Darcy and Sander who started speaking everyday via FaceTime. Three months later Sander made the bold decision to come to the US for almost a month. A crazy decision for both of them that worked out in the best possible way!

Sander returned to the United States at the end of May and they embarked on a cross country road trip to visit Darcy’s Uncle Spencer in New Mexico. Darcy had some other plans in mind though! She had rented a cabin in the middle of the Petrified Forest in Arizona. At sunset on June 1st, Darcy proposed to Sander in a dried up river bed while exploring the area. He said YES!

Next came a LONG year and a half of waiting for visas and travel paperwork to be approved. There were many back and forth trips for both of them to Norway and the United States with a few family vacations thrown in there! Finally, in December of 2023, they finally got the notification that the visa had been approved.

In March 2024 Sander officially moved to Raleigh, North. Carolina. They had a small civil ceremony on April 19, 2024 in the Wake County Courthouse, Raleigh, North Carolina to meet Sander’s visa requirements

They are ready to start their life together and celebrate with family and friends. The best is yet to come!

#ourwayorNorway