Some would call it love at first sight. It was December 2019 and Naveen recently moved back to New York after spending six years in London. Annie left her consulting job at Deloitte for a new role at the WNBA. On Annie’s third week at the NBA, in a meeting of more than 100 people, she sat next to no one other than Naveen, a well dressed man who ended up being the presenter at the meeting. After the meeting they exchanged hellos and decided to get coffee one day. Annie called her best friends on the way home from work that day and told them she thought she was going to like the new job...

Annie and Naveen's love bloomed during COVID. When the NBA office finally re-opened in August 2020, both Annie and Naveen found themselves the only ones in the building (no coincidence in that). The week before Labor Day they planned to get drinks after work. Was it a date? Were they just coworkers? Both secretly hoped it was the former! Naveen lived in the Upper East Side and Annie lived in Tribeca (some would call it long-distance). Once they started dating, they quickly knew that the other was their person. They traveled to Tulum, lived in Charleston, and spent many late nights bopping through the streets of New York City. They made Tacombi their Sunday spot to recover from their Saturday night out and looked forward to weekly Thursday date nights.

Naveen's love for sneakers and an itch for something new manifested him a new gig at New Balance. He moved to Boston Spring 2022 and Annie joined him in December 2022. Boston has both challenged them (e.g., New England fashion, length of winter, lack of bagels) and rewarded them with more time to cook, a couch that would never fit in an NYC apartment, coastal-city living, and so much more. In April 2023, Annie convinced Naveen to do the 10K Charleston Bridge Run with her. Charleston was also an equi-distance location between their parents’ homes, Atlanta, Georgia and Richmond, Virginia, and they thought no better time to bring the two families together. A race was run and a ring was given... Naveen asked Annie to marry him! We are excited for Chapter 4 and beyond...