Our

Story

dominique

As the daughter of Verena and Hansjörg Bauer and older sister of Nicole, I grew up in St. Gall's Goldach, near Lake Constance. My parents gave me the travel gene from an early age and, interestingly, the first trip as a baby was to Rome - the capital of Italy. But not only traveling and exploring the world has remained a great passion. Despite two years of tennis lessons, my love for horses prevailed and is - as many of you know - a very important part of my life to this day 😊. During my childhood I enjoyed many summers either on the back of our "first own horse" Lucky Star or on the motorboat, which we often used as a summer series house. From the “Home Base” of our single-family house with lots of pets in Goldach, we went to the local primary and secondary school and in 2002 also to the cantonal school in St. Gallen. On the first day I particularly noticed this tall, slim guy who was also divided into our class and was by far the tallest of the whole class.

Fabio

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In 1987 little Fabio was born in Ascona. The microclimate at his birthplace "Via del Sole" has probably shaped his longing for the sun to this day. As the son of Fiorella and Heinz, the then curly-haired boy was born with a healthy dose of mischievousness and cheerfulness and was thus in the best of company around his two older brothers Patrick and David. The name "Fabio" was, by the way, a great wish of his Italian "Nonna" and, in general, the country of Italy had a very great influence on Fabio and his whole family - not only in terms of culinary delights! In terms of football, however, the youngster was more enthusiastic about the rough and intense style of play of the British and has consequently been a passionate fan of Manchester United for decades, whose "Theater of Dreams" he has also visited on many occasions. Besides football, his many close friends and, of course, his family, there was only one more important thing or person in his life: Dominique. After she turned Fabio's eyes day by day starting in 2002, the love of our lives developed.

Our history together began on August 12, 2002 at the Kantonsschule am Burggraben in St Gallen. Although we had little exchange during the first two of the four cantonal school years, we spent many hours together on the school bench and then in 2004/5 we found interest in each other after all. And this although with Famous Prints in 2005 a second important "man" entered Dominique's life 😊. Until the finish of highschool it was never enough for a solid relationship and after passing the finals, we both travelled for three months into the big wide world. Fabio went to England, where he learned authentic English in language school and especially in pubs and indulged his passion for soccer. Dominique made a short detour to Montana, but then unexpectedly ended up with the O'Connell family in San Diego and experienced 3 life-changing months there. Thanks to Fabio's persuasion skills, we started our bachelor studies together at the University of St. Gallen already in October 2006 and - after some short detours - got closer again, also on a private level. Many university courses and study hours spent together in the St. Gallen library Vadiana later, the Frauenfeld Openair on July 15 2007 was the groundbreaking for our relationship - in the midst of a lot of French Hip Hop 😊.

The coming years were marked by wonderful experiences as a couple, with our families and friends. We managed to finish our bachelor's degree together and had our first work experiences at the student startup KKarten, as well as at Credit Suisse and UBS. Intensive study sessions during the Master's and several trips to European countries later, we both had the Master's degree in the bag and moved from home and together to Horgen in 2013. From then on, our lives changed drastically - we were both working full time and our free time, and thus our time together, was suddenly very much diminished. Despite these challenges, Fabio mastered all three parts of the CFA diploma with a lot of perseverance and cleverness. From then on he worked at Bank Vontobel and Dominique started as a management consultant at the international Accenture AG. But the first 8 years of our relationship were not only characterized by studying and working. For us, the balance was always very important and we undertook numerous smaller trips - often with family and friends - and among them also a few larger trips to "Overseas", to the wide(r) world. Some highlights:

The month-long road trip across California, Utah, Arizona and Nevada in 2008, where we visited Dominique's host family in San Diego and had to dig out of the sands of Pismo Beach in the then rented Mustang - our favorite rental car in the US 😊.

Two trips to Manchester, where we cheered on Fabio's favorite team Manchester United at Old Trafford and contributed significantly to their unparalleled winning streak during those years.

The road trip through Florida in 2013 with subsequent beach vacations in the Bahamas, where the Mustang model already underwent a small upgrade 😊.

Then came 2015. As many of you know, this year - and the following ones - were not exactly easy for us. At rather short notice, Fabio got the opportunity to go to Singapore for Vontobel to build up a new team there. The distance and sometimes also the already very long duration of the relationship at a young age took its toll and led to the fact that we went our separate ways. The interim attempts to patch up the relationship over a distance of 10,000 kilometers were not very successful. A ray of hope after Fabio's return was the trip to Down Under in 2017, where we had set a new personal record with 10 flights within a month and Dominique learned through her own experiences why it is nice to put a fly net on horses in the summer 😊.

However, the traces of the last two years sat too deep and we decided to go separate ways at the end of 2017, dissolved our life together and built - each on his own - a new one. An adventurous year with many new experiences awaited both of us and during more than half a year without any contact it looked as if the 15th of July 2022 would never take place in the planned form.

But as life goes, in the second half of 2018 we hesitantly found a first common ground again, got to know each other and did first things together again. After many cautious steps towards each other, we then decided to be a couple again beginning of 2019 and from then on tackled life's challenges together again, strengthened by personal developments. After Fabio decided to leave Vontobel in October 2019, we celebrated the reunion in terms of travel with an ultraspontaneous world trip.

Over the course of three months, we traveled from Switzerland to South America (Peru, Bolivia), Costa Rica, San Diego, Hawaii (Oahu and Maui), Fiji, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Myanmar and Bangkok. Important to mention here is especially the 26th of November 2019, which we spent after two weeks of absolute adventure vacation in a beautiful hotel on the beach of Tamarindo Beach in Costa Rica with a lot of relaxing. On the day in question, Dominique treated herself to an extensive pedicure and had no idea what was to become of the day. A few hours later we were sitting comfortably on the sandy beach when Fabio suddenly dug out "something dangerously red" from the sand and asked Dominique to marry him in a very romantic setting. Who would have thought that just a few months ago! Needless to say, by sheer scale, this world tour was the most formative trip yet and with 23 flights, 9 countries and 6 continents in three months, it was an experience unlike any other. The 26th November 2019 will always remain the highlight 😊.

Just in time for the 30th birthday of Dominique's sister and with countless unique and unbelievable impressions, we then traveled back to Switzerland in January 2020 - thus also just in time before the (first) Switzerland-wide Corona Lockdown in March 2020. Nobody would have thought that after 3 months of "quality time" we would just spend another x months 24/7 together. But the intensive time together and the many adventures have shown us that life together is a thousand times more beautiful than life alone and we are incredibly happy to hopefully be able to toast with you all on July 15, 2022! Let the parties start again!

P.S.: The ones who have read the text extra carefully now also know why it has to be July 15 exactly in 2022 😊.