It was a snowy winter night in December 2015 when Abhishek met Sahanna. At the time, she was busy attending graduate school in New York City, and he was situated in Lexington, Kentucky where he went to college. It just so happened, however, that they had grown up only 20 miles apart and were both home for the holidays. As they were bored, swiping around on Dil Mil as twenty-somethings did, Abhishek and Sahanna caught each other's eye. Sahanna looked stunning dressed in her dance outfit and Abhishek was dressed in some nerdy sweater she liked for some reason. As soon as they found each other, they decided to test their connection at the holy grail of fine dining - Olive Garden. From the first date it was kismet, and it wasn't long before they began their long long journey of merging their lives together.

40 hours. Imagine a relationship built on 40 hours, once a month. That's all Abhishek and Sahanna had in the beginning. Any way you slice it, long distance dating isn't easy - but Abhishek and Sahanna both knew some things are too good to pass up. It was this spirit that held Abhishek and Sahanna together, even when their relationship was 99.9% Skype calls and voicemails, interspersed with ever elusive in-person visits. Every month one of them would fly for one special weekend together. The flight itself from Lexington to New York City takes up a large chunk of the weekend, so, in reality, all the time they had together was about 40 hours, if they were lucky. And that's just the way it was for a while...years, in fact. Even when Sahanna moved to Norfolk, Virgina, they somehow found a way to squeeze every drop out of those weekends and to fill every second with unforgettable memories and adventures. For those 40 hours, they got a taste of the future. Patience is a virtue and in time Abhishek and Sahanna were rewarded for theirs. After 2 and a half years of long-distance, Sahanna was able to move back to Columbus, Ohio, only 1.5 hours of driving away from Abhishek in Cincinnati, Ohio. To most people, that might still feel like long distance. To them, it might as well have been next door. Now past the 4 year mark, at long last, Abhishek and Sahanna have finally found their way to each other.

Abhishek's style has always been grand and over the top, while Sahanna prefers a minimalist, elegant aesthetic. He knew that mixing the two energies in a proposal would be no easy task, so he hatched a plot designed to tug at her heart strings and sentimental nature while simultaneously feeding his penchant for the magnificent. His general idea was a scavenger hunt in the city where they fell in love. It was designed to have her relive each significant phase of her adult life that led her to him, all the while incorporating all the important connections she made along the way. Sahanna, Abhishek, and a few friends were planning a trip to New York City to celebrate New Year's Eve 2019. Unbeknownst to Sahanna, Abhishek had a ring in his back pocket. First, Abhishek and the crew split up with Sahanna at the Brooklyn Bridge, where Abhishek first asked Sahanna to be his girlfriend. Here she was completely surprised by her closest friends from college who had flown in from all over the country. They then joined her as she tackled a riddle only she could solve, based on the couple's adventures in NYC, which would then lead her to the 230 Fifth Rooftop Bar - their favorite upscale haunt. There, she was joined by the friends she made in graduate school who presented her with a second riddle. This then led her to Barcelona Bar, Abhishek and Sahanna's favorite local hole in the wall, and the first place they went to together in NYC. Here, she found friends she had made through her relationship with Abhishek. She then received the final clue which brought her back to her old apartment in Washington Heights, uptown Manhattan, where Abhishek first visited her many years ago. Here under the street lamp in a spot that only held significance to them, in front of all the meaningful connections she had made in her life, Abhishek asked her if she would like to keep solving riddles with him for the rest of their lives. Spoiler: she said yes!