UPDATE-We hope you join us for our virtual wedding ceremony!

While having downtime at work, I was goofing off with some coworkers back in March of 2018. As I was scrolling through Facebook, my coworker, Deb just happened to look over and saw a photo of Ankur. She pointed to him and he said “Who’s that? He’s cute!” Ankur’s brother, Amit, posted a picture of them at the 76ers playoff game in Philly. I knew Amit very casually from Penn State but hadn’t talked to him in over 7 years. In my mind, I was thinking, “I can’t just reach out and bluntly ask 'Hey is your brother single?'” ...Or so I thought! With some major encouragement from my coworkers, I reached out to Amit, made some small talk and took my shot. To my surprise, Amit responded, we chatted a bit and he gave me Ankur’s number. I decided to wait a day before texting this total stranger I had seen on the internet! During hours of FaceTimeing and texting, Ankur asked me to hang out and told me he’d like to come visit me in Philly. Together, we both planned out a full day of exploring the city (90% me, 10% him for the record). I spent the whole day getting ready and making sure my foster dog (at the time) was well fed- apparently too well fed. So I was already filled with first date jitters, when Ankur texted me he was on his way. Never in a million years did I think the first thing I would say to him right before meeting him, was “my dog has diarrhea...I’ll be late.” But here we are! As they say in our city, Trust the Process, which has also become our relationship motto. From our first date, I knew he was a keeper because he surprised me with my favorite type of dark chocolate snack and picked up my favorite drink of choice, Tito’s! At that moment I got a glimpse of just how thoughtful and attentive he was. We went on a few more dates and he asked me to officially be his girlfriend a couple months later and the rest is history. Since our relationship started on an adventure, it’s only fitting we take you all on an adventure to Mexico to celebrate our wedding!

I knew I wanted to marry Aarti for a long time, but there were certain things that needed to happen first. Personally, I needed to make specific advancements in my career and wanted to move back to Philly. All that finally happened when I accepted my dream job at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. As soon as I signed the offer letter, I got the ball rolling getting the ring because I didn’t want to waste time. I wanted to marry her! Once I found the perfect ring, I started brainstorming different ways of proposing. I knew she had an idea that it was coming, so I got a fake engagement ring box and faked her out with lousy proposals, twice. Things came together when we had a dinner reservation at the new Four Seasons restaurant: Jean-George’s, on the 62nd floor of the tallest building in Philadelphia. I knew she was expecting it so I planned my second fake out. I had her going for a solid few seconds before she noticed the keychain ring instead of a beautiful diamond. But then, after dinner, we went back to her apartment. I could tell she was a little disappointed because she thought it would happen during dinner, but also kind of excited to see what I actually had planned. Little did she know that earlier in the week, I met with Mary, (the best front desk concierge) and told her that I was planning on asking Aarti to marry me. I asked Mary if it were possible if she could give me the keys to the rooftop deck of the apartment complex, which has a beautiful view of the city (and was exactly where Aarti was standing when she and I first spoke on the phone before we had ever met). Of course Mary obliged. I bought flowers and set up the roof with lights and had Roopa and Ansue hide in the freezing cold, in the corner of the roof, to take pictures. I will never forget the moment, overlooking the greatest city in the world, holding the hand of the love of my life in my own hand, asking if she could make me the happiest guy in the world... She said yes!