TL;DR Ailise & Brian met at a music festival and became best friends over their shared love of breakfast tacos. In January 2016, Ailise's cousin, Mairead, texted her and asked if she wanted to go to a music festival in Seattle over Memorial Day. Mairead said she was going to get two tickets in case a friend wanted to go with -- Ailise thought that was a *great* idea so she did the same. Shortly after, she panicked realizing she could not afford two music festival tickets and sold her extra to her childhood friend (and Seattle resident) Jake. Ailise's cousin had trouble finding someone to purchase their extra ticket so Ailise asked Jake if any of his friends would want to buy it. Enter Brian. Brian's attendance turned out to to be a godsend; not only did he provide great vibes and camping equipment for the 4 day overnight festival, he also had a car. This proved extremely helpful as the music festival was in fact *NOT* in Seattle but 2 hours outside the city. (Whoops). The main food staple of the weekend was breakfast tacos, prompting Brian to group text everyone whenever he had a breakfast taco to let them know he was thinking of them. Ailise later learned Brian did this because he was too nervous to just text Ailise individually. Eventually, after a number of breakfast taco group chats (Brian ate A LOT of breakfast tacos), the two started speaking to one another directly, thus starting a 3 year period of will-they-won't-they-are-they confusion for their friends, family, and themselves.

The exact date depends on which one of us you ask but we both agree it happened sometime during Spring 2019. We celebrate June 12th as our anniversary which was the date that Ailise asked Brian to be her boyfriend while standing in line at a Menchie's frozen yogurt. Ailise's engagement ring is a nod to this as the center stone is Alexandrite -- the birth stone for the month of June.

With the ring in hand—a few months later than originally anticipated—Brian set out to plan a “spontaneous” trip to Menchies [1] or film a Top Five with Tanabe episode that would end in a proposal. Unfortunately, Ailise had other plans and inadvertently kept thwarting his. Unable to concoct a more elaborate proposal, Brian decided to stage a low-key proposal at home [2]. Ring box stashed in his pocket and an iPhone precariously placed atop the fridge to capture the big moment, Brian asked if Ailise wanted to help cut vegetables for a Sunday brunch the next day with a few friends. Unsurprisingly, having already spent multiple hours in the kitchen preparing her own dish for the brunch, she declined, went into the living room, and picked up her cross stitch. Foiled again, Brian regrouped. He called into the living room and asked Ailise to do him a favor. She said “of course!” because she is an angel. Four or five minutes later [3] she walked into the kitchen where Brian asked her to help him put his hair up and told her to use the hair tie in his pocket. [4] She reached in, felt the ring box, and froze. While presenting the ring, Brian said, “you were very difficult to engage today. I hope it'll be easier for you to say yes to this. Will you marry me?” Ailise asked if he still wanted her to put his hair up for him. Also, she said yes. ** [1] Ailise asked Brian out in a Menchies. [2] Ailise nearly derailed that as well. [3] Brian later learned Ailise was talking to her MOH about how she thought he would propose next week. [4] As our washing machine can attest, Brian frequently stashes hair ties in his pockets.