"The very first time I met my wife, it was in Oxford over Thanksgiving break. My best friend spent a semester of undergrad abroad at Oxford and became friends with her; when I visited my friend over break, I was introduced to the woman who is now my wife. It was informal, and in passing -- she didn't even remember that it happened. At the time, it seemed to be an inconsequential meeting. Six years later, we were reconnected by the mutual friend, as I was spending the summer in Europe. She and I went to dinner and attended a concert. Two weeks later, the day before I flew back to the States, she and I took a walk along the Thames, in the neighborhood we now live in.

"We stayed in touch via Skype and email. We were only able to visit occasionally over the next few months. We reached a point when we decided we either needed to spend less time communicating, or meet each other in person and discuss the matter ourselves. When we did meet face-to-face, we decided to try to make our relationship work.

"After all this time communicating across the ocean, I flew to the UK and proposed to her while we were taking a walk in Oxford, the very place we met originally. We were married in the States; we now live in the UK. And the very first place we lived together was in Conway Hall, Notre Dame's London dorm. Now, I live with my wife and twin boys in Conway as the rector of the building.

"We'll be the first to tell you that it's not easy. It's not easy to have relatives and friends who live in a different country; it's not easy to maintain a relationship over time when it's not face-to-face. But you learn from it. You grow from it.

"I'm not much of a risk-taker, so I suppose you could say this was the greatest risk I ever took...but to me, it didn't feel like a risk at all."