It was the summer of 2012. I was living in Indiana, but visiting family in Maryland at the time. My cousin, Rachel, had invited me to come out with her and her boyfriend at the time, Eric. I agreed and tagged along to The Phoenix, a small pub in Old Ellicott City. Some of Eric's friends met us there, including Josh. I remember him knocking on the big window outside of The Phoenix to get our attention and he had the biggest grin on his face. He looked SO familiar. We spent half the night listing the places where I might have seen him before, but never came up with an answer. YEARS passed. Either we were both in relationships, or I played coy and hard to get. Finally, I wised up and decided I couldn't let Josh get away. Why had I waited so long? I had finally found "the one whom my soul loves". As I reflect on the utter luckiness of my love and laughter-filled life, I recall that first night we met. Why had Josh looked so familiar to me? I know now; he was the man of my dreams.

We have known pretty much since Day 1 that we were going to get married. We even picked out each other's rings. So I knew a proposal was coming, and I made it very clear that I didn't want anybody else there but us two, and I didn't want it to be a big to-do. We had been out running errands all day. Josh kept mentioning that he needed to email my ringmaker, because we had ordered my ring a long time ago and it had still never arrived. I didn't really give it a second thought. Josh has a habit of asking me, almost daily, "When are you going to marry me?". I always reply, "I'll marry you right now". After our errands that day, I was ironing his clothes for work the next morning when again, he asked me, "When are you going to marry me?" Not turning around from my ironing, I made the usual reply, "I'll marry you right now". His response: "Well don't you think you're going to need this?" I turned around, and there he was with my gorgeous ring.