Nathan and Charlotte Wichert met at UW-Milwaukee and fell in love – just not right away.
They first met during a training session for Curtin Hall’s foreign language departments. An international graduate student teaching in the French department, Charlotte was paired with Nathan, a graduate student in the German department. Nathan was in a suit for work and was late for his shift at a downtown restaurant.
“I was perhaps a little short with my now-wife, which in hindsight probably wasn’t my best move,” Nathan recalled.
Luckily for the two of them, one of Charlotte’s colleagues developed a crush on Nathan. Charlotte’s friend asked her to invite Nathan to hang out, in a bid to spend time with him. However, it ended up, as these things sometimes do, with Charlotte taking a shine to the teaching assistant from the German department.
Not long after that Nathan asked Charlotte out for their first date: a drink at a former North Avenue establishment called Two Bucks. After the date, Nathan walked her home to Kenilworth Square Apartments.
Charlotte recalled the scene outside: “I was waiting for Nathan to kiss me, and it wasn’t happening. So, I said ‘are you going to kiss me or what?’ We never left each other since that day.”
Originally from Lyon, France, Charlotte came to Milwaukee through an exchange program with the University of Paris (known as the Sorbonne). Both Charlotte and Nathan, who grew up in Milwaukee, were enrolled in the Master of Arts in Language, Literature and Translation – in French and German, respectively.
Charlotte originally planned to return to France to teach English, but she fell in love with Nathan – and with teaching French during her time at UWM.
That made the decision to stay here much easier. The two graduate students had bonded over their love of languages, and it didn’t hurt that they both practically lived in Curtin Hall while studying as graduate students.
“We probably walked past that giant fountain 900 times,” Nathan said.
As that fateful school year drew to a close, Nathan and Charlotte found themselves fully in love and wondering what would happen now that she was soon to return to France.
According to Charlotte: “Nathan said, ‘we know were going to get married, so let’s just do it sooner than we anticipated.’”
The official proposal came in early February 2013. Nathan brought her to the historic North Point water tower and proposed on one knee as snow fell around them.
They spent the following summer in France and returned to Milwaukee, followed by Charlotte’s family and friends, for a wedding in Wisconsin in September 2014, one year to the day after that first kiss
Charlotte is a French teacher at Nicolet High School and Nathan works for Point-to-Point translation and language consultants in Milwaukee.
They recently decided to return to UWM for a post-baccalaureate world language teacher licensure. They each have scholarships for the program, and they didn’t think of going anywhere else for their additional education.
“We appreciate everything they’ve done for us,” Nathan said of their time at UWM. “It felt right.”
