We can thank the wonderful technology of dating apps for getting us together. We met on Tinder and after a little conversation we decided to meet for a drink! We set a date to hang out and a place to meet after work one evening.

It was a rainy evening (no, really...that's not just cliche) and we met at the Pony Bar on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Becky walked in and texted Justin that she had arrived. He arrived shortly after and they both determined that the bar was too crowded and busy- no place to sit and too loud to really talk. We decided to move next door to Mile 17 and found a quiet spot at a table in the back of the bar. Becky remembers being nervous and embarrassed as she kept sweating. Justin remembers being jittery from the 5pm double espresso and damp from the rainy crossing of 1st Avenue - nervous too! We had a few drinks and then decided that we were both hungry and walked over to the Meatball Shop for a bite to eat. After sitting and eating we realized how late it was and determined that it was probably time to head out. We walked to the Subway station for Justin to head home and then started talking on the corner. Justin asked, "Is it too forward to ask if you are free this weekend." Becky replied, "No, and I'm actually home this weekend." Justin, "Do you want to do something on Saturday?" Becky, "I'd love to." We said our goodbyes with a big hug and head to our apartments excited to hang out in a couple days.

Becky's Words: In 2016, we had been dating for a year and I was invited to Thanksgiving with Justin's family. We were in the kitchen helping prep food and Justin's mom, Susan was asking me something about my apartment. I said it was a great space but when my lease was up in the Spring I would probably be looking at moving to Brooklyn so I would be closer to Justin & Jackson. She asked me, "When is your lease up?" I answered with "May". Then she asked Justin, "When is your lease up Justin?" He said, "I don't have a lease really but I think initially was in the Spring." Susan then followed with, "Well, why don't you two just move in together?" I laughed and playfully slapped Justin on the arm and said, "Well Justin maybe we should talk about that." We all kind of laughed, but it opened up the conversation for discussion. Thanks Susan!! : ) As we discussed moving in we determined I would come and look around the Williamsburg/Greenpoint neighborhood a bit more to get a sense of the area and what I liked. Justin & Jackson had some conversations about it and the 3 of us did as well to make sure we all felt good about it. We started looking at apartments early in the year to see if we could find something that would work for the 3 of us, and then followed up as we got closer to our actual move-in date and found our place in Greenpoint. The move was set!

Justin's Words: As many millennial couples do, Becky and I had been openly talking about getting married and growing our lives together for a while. I fully realized that I wanted to marry Becky over the winter holidays of 2017 when the multiverse of our lives were entangled in our special blend of personal enrichment, professional development, and great deal of family crazy (tm with love) all stirred up in one pot. Through all the rough patches, self-realization, and insight over a few week span, it was more clear as ever that Beck and I are perfect compliments to each other and there is no one else I want to give my whole heart to and spend the rest of my life with. That said, the following 12 month journey to proposal did not come quickly! After many false starts of finding the 'perfect' proposal ideas with too-complex schemes to put too many resources in the right area to create a effortless magical moment fell by the wayside, I broke my proposal down to a simple show of love and nostalgia.

After Thanksgiving of that year passed, I realized I was on the clock and was wasting time - thankfully my wonderful fiance had arranged stops over the previous summer to try on engagement rings, so I had a crystal clear idea of what she liked and didn't like in that department. With the engagement ring decision then being made, I focused on a date for the proposal and (as Becky and I do frequently) worked backwards from there. The proposal had to include Jackson, and I knew I wanted it to be outside in Brooklyn in one of our special places in our neighborhood. The week prior to the proposal, I made calls to Beck's Mom & Dad, who were in no way surprised when I asked for their blessings to ask Becky to marry me - let's just say phone calls to Bob and Vickie aren't too frequent, so they knew the text messages asking if they had a few minutes to talk on the phone one December afternoon wasn't going to be about the weather or who the Eagles or 49ers played that weekend. With blessings confirmed, I moved onto the trickiest piece of the puzzle, getting Jackson involved. I love my son more than anything in this world, but he CANNOT keep a secret - I take this as a point of pride as a Father, but when planning a proposal you need to keep things under wraps as necessary. The morning of the proposal (a Saturday) I got up early and found Jackson in his room reading - I closed the door and said I had something important to discuss with him. We had talked as a family (as well as one on one) about Becky and I marrying many times before, but I wanted to have the discussion one more time to make sure he was more than just ok with it. I said I wanted to propose to Beck today and I asked him if he wanted Beck to officially be a part of our family - he immediately started crying, gave me a huge hug, and said YES! We both cried a bit more and then I said "Now comes the hard part. You've got to keep this under wraps for a few hours while we hatch this plan. Can you do that?"

He, of course, said yes, and I proceeded to give him the outline of the day (as I'm remembering this, there is Oceans 11 style heist music playing in the background while I lay out the tasks for the proposal in front of us). We had all the semblances of a 'normal' lazy day for us - relaxing a bit in the morning, breakfast at home together, a project at the apartment here or there, and then we'd go out to a local flea market to look for Christmas gifts and walk around the neighborhood. Once through the flea market, I had asked Jackson if he could suggest we go down to his soccer field to see the river - this seemed organic enough, as we needed a 'reason' to go down to the river as the wind was oh so cold that day. Jackson's blessing was important, but his other most important task for the day was his skills as photographer - we discussed earlier that I wanted him to ask to take pictures of us when we got to the river, but they needed to be good pictures, as I was going to proposing during them. The scheming worked, I got us down to the river overlooking Manhattan, in a park that means so much to us in a city that means to much to us, with Jackson taking our pictures with the Empire State Building in the background. After a few normal pictures (once the seagulls cleared away from our background), I turned to Becky and said "Are you ready?" I looked at Jackson and gave him a nod (we talked before about how to take the pictures - "Keep us in frame and just keep taking pictures!" we even practiced in his bedroom that morning) and he lit up and got into position. Becky responded "What do you mean?" - I got down on one knee and said something sappy and unintelligible, followed by putting the ring on her finger and asking "Will you marry me?" She started crying and said yes! We kissed and I said to Jack "we probably have enough pictures, don't you think?" and he came running over for hugs and to be a part of the celebration.