From tongue-tied to tying the knot

When Giang Nguyen decided he was ready to marry Elizabeth Leppert, he knew that the proposal would need to include two things: a Miniature Schnauzer puppy and a return to the place where they met.

It took more than a year of planning (mostly due to the puppy), but 24 years after first laying eyes on Leppert, Nguyen got down on one knee on the grounds of Eden Prairie’s Oak Point Elementary School.

Leppert said yes, but didn’t immediately realize the significance of the location. “It didn’t click until the next day,” she said.

Meet cute

Nguyen and Leppert met in Dianna Kelley’s fifth grade class at Oak Point Elementary in 1998. At the time, Nguyen was a fresh transplant to Minnesota from Vietnam, and Leppert was the girl that helped him with his ESL homework.

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“I had a crush on her,” said Nguyen. “I just didn’t know enough English to say it.”

Leppert admits that she doesn’t remember much from that time, but she made quite an impression on Nguyen. “She helped me with that homework and I was thinking this girl likes me,” said Nguyen. “Also, she had braces and I thought those are really cool.”

Nguyen’s crush went dormant as the two traversed middle and high school, making new friends and dating other people. They remained acquaintances through mutual friends. One of those mutual friends helped the two reconnect in the summer of 2018.

Reunion

Nguyen had just moved back to the Twin Cities from the West Coast. Leppert, who had moved back to the Twin Cities from the West Coast herself two years earlier, was hosting a cabin weekend for friends in northern Wisconsin. One friend asked if they could bring Nguyen along. “It was two days after he moved back,” Leppert recalled. They hit it off that weekend and have been dating ever since.

“It does seem like a bit of fate,” said Leppert, of reconnecting within days of his return to Minnesota.

The Eden Prairie duo initially bonded over their time on the West Coast, but it was a compatible sense of humor that kept them together. “Elizabeth’s really funny,” said Nguyen. “She makes me laugh every day.”

“Our personalities click really well,” offered Leppert. “And we have the same values.

“He fits into my family really well.”

Proposal

Nguyen, a software developer, began planning his proposal to the licensed nutritionist in the spring of 2021 when he asked her parents for their blessing. With that in hand, Nguyen then started the search for a Miniature Schnauzer breeder.

“I wasn’t planning on a traditional ring proposal,” said Nguyen. “I wanted to propose with a puppy.”

Nguyen specifically wanted a black and white Miniature Schnauzer. He found a breeder in Long Prairie, and after waiting patiently for a year, Hochi was ready to be picked up last June. Nguyen enlisted the help of his brother and Leppert’s mother to pull together the other elements of the proposal. He told Leppert he was going to spend the day scuba diving as he made the drive to Long Prairie and back to collect the puppy. Nguyen dropped the puppy off at the proposal site with Leppert’s mother and then returned to their home to lure Leppert back to Oak Point Elementary.

Nguyen suggested they get outside to enjoy the June evening, and they made their way toward the school where Leppert’s mother had set up a picnic. Nguyen’s brother was waiting with a camera to capture everything as it unfolded.

“Hochi was supposed to go in the basket and wait, but he was a little rambunctious,” Nguyen recalled. “He was wandering around the picnic area instead.”

As “Beyond” by Leon Bridges played, Nguyen picked up the wandering pup, and Leppert finally began to put two and two together. “He got this look in his eye and it all clicked together in a moment,” she said.

“I said some nice words and asked her to marry me, but I forgot to get down on one knee,” said Nguyen.

“I pointed to the ground,” said Leppert.

With Nguyen on one knee, Leppert had just one question for him. “I said, ‘Is this puppy really ours?'”

Wedding

Today, the 34-year-olds are busy planning a Labor Day wedding. Like the proposal, the wedding’s location will also pay homage to the early days of their relationship — the cabin that hosted their fateful reunion five years ago. “It will be a small and intimate ceremony,” said Leppert.

Much has changed in the 24-plus years since they first met, including Nguyen’s mastery of the English language. But the Vietnamese immigrant who once struggled with basic English vocabulary now has all the words he needs to compliment his fiancée.

“She’s just as beautiful as the day I met her in fifth grade.”