Korren Christina Campbell had always dreamed of getting married at her maternal grandmother’s “Pink Castle” in Easton, Md.

“‘Yup, that will be my wedding,’” Campbell would often say, enchanted by her parents’ two-hour wedding video at the Alhambra-style desert dawn pink house belonging to the woman she calls Oma. She and her two younger sisters, who grew up in various guesthouses there, watched the video on movie night sleepovers.

In October 2020, she met Jacob Robert Degler, both fresh out of college and new to Chicago, at a birthday gathering one Friday night at the Broken Barrel Bar in the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

Degler, who goes by Jake, treated her to a shot of Malört, a Chicago specialty, as they stood in line at the bar, hoping to get her number sometime that evening. But minutes later, he encountered a hiccup.

The friend, who had invited them both, had his arm around her. They had just begun casually dating.

“A piece of me thought ‘That sucks,’” Degler said, but for the sake of friendship, quickly switched gears. “I met this cool girl that could be a friend.”

Degler, who grew up in Cary, N.C., moved to Chicago after graduating cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Dayton. He had fallen in love with the city after his father took him to Lollapalooza music festivals in Grant Park every summer, from 2011 to 2019.