"Help me escape from an arranged marriage" was the tagline on Uday's Tinder profile that coerced a laugh from Audrey. He thought she was using him for a free meal. She thought he was charming. Both wanted a second date and here we are.

The first two years included Midnight Yell dates, study dates, and several trips to Carney’s Pub. When the time drew near for Uday to graduate, we thought long and hard about our future together and we both knew we were in it for the long haul, despite a guaranteed two years of long distance. We both knew then that we would likely spend our lives together, but we had priorities. Audrey wanted to have finished her masters, and Uday wanted to live together for a year before even considering getting engaged.

When Uday moved to his second location, Audrey graciously agreed to help him move from Oklahoma City to Milwaukee during the last week of December. Uday’s Honda CRV was packed to the absolute brim, and the snow started falling as we left OKC. We made it to Milwaukee on New Year’s Day and Audrey was glad to have a passenger footwell again. Not everything made it to Wisconsin, USPS decided a Nerf gun was too dangerous for the mail, but it is a trip we look back on and laugh.

With Uday at the end of his work rotation program and Audrey waiting for grad school acceptance, she flew to spend her last undergrad spring break in Washington DC. Everyone knows how March 2020 went. We saw reports every day of closures and restrictions. Audrey had an additional week of spring break. On that Friday we spent the day at the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center, and had almost the whole place to ourselves as all the museums in DC would be closing indefinitely at the end of the day. As we left, Audrey got her first acceptance letter to Tulane. The next day she went home to Texas and we had no idea when we would see each other again.

Uday ended up moving back home to Baton Rouge and Audrey decided to attend Tulane in New Orleans. Having a distance of 1 hour was a welcome change after living on opposite sides of the country. And during Audrey’s 2nd year, we moved in together. One month later Hurricane Ida struck New Orleans, leaving the entirety of Southern Louisiana without power for potentially weeks, and us without a functional roof. We still lived in that apartment for 6 more months before contractors were finally able to get to ours. When over 1 million people have roof damage it takes a while to work through the list. We endured leaks, drafts, living from one room, and keeping our cats out of trouble. And Uday thought, if we can get through this, we can get through anything...

Uday meticulously designed a ring and box as well as planned a proposal at our favorite spot, an ice cream parlor called Creole Creamery, all under Audrey’s nose. With the help of some dedicated friends of course. Weeks of planning, many group chats, and a fake birthday brunch to trick Audrey into dressing up resulted in a surprise she couldn't dream of. Uday may have let it slip that Audrey needed to get her nails done, but it still turned out ok. The rest of the day was spent celebrating with friends and family, and ended with a Taylor Swift sing-a-long party. Thus started a full year of procrastinating on wedding planning.