Exactly when the Story of Brendan and Ivy begins is lost to history. Brendan doesn't remember the details at all. But what is clear is that in 2008 both of them were on their high school debate team, and got to know each other on the long weekend trips to various Virginia high schools and colleges, becoming friends. They did date briefly that year, but both agreed to end that and go back to being friends. They spent many long hours chatting on Gmail and a fledgling Facebook over the next several years. He went off to college and came home; she went off to college and came home. In 2016 they were living together, as friends, feeling stuck in the hometown they had both tried to move on from, and uncertain about their futures. One evening while walking their roommate's dog, they decided that, while neither was certain about their future, the only person they could imagine spending their lives with was each other. That was the start of a new era of the Story. They got together, Brendan finished school, and they decided to take a leap of faith. They did something nobody expected. They moved to Pittsburgh. They had a rough plan, but most importantly they had each other. Ivy earned her MSW; Brendan got his first job as an engineer. They both struggled with isolation in their new city, but they did eventually make some new friends. It was during the Pittsburgh years they said goodbye to their loyal pets Cobalt and Martin, and hello to two new ones in Allie and Clem. They became lifelong Penguins fans. And they braved the pandemic. But their time in Pittsburgh was never intended to last forever. Seeking new prospects and new horizons, they took another leap. Upon landing in Salem, the original colonists developed a mass hysteria which lead to America's most famous witch hunt--an event now celebrated each October by over a million tourists. But for Brendan and Ivy it was just their newest home. New jobs, new places to explore. Ivy got to fulfill her lifelong dream of living on the ocean, although not exactly in the way she had imagined it. In many ways, they had achieved much of what they had set out to achieve when they left Virginia, and their thoughts turned more fully to their ultimate future--marriage, hopefully a happy family, and growing old together. And so, one brisk afternoon on the shores of Cape Ann, Brendan asked Ivy to marry him. Since then, they have been working very hard to get all the pieces in place for one perfect September evening, when they hope to be surrounded by all the people they love. And then begins the next chapter--the next of yet many chapters--in what will no doubt be a long, and loving, happily ever after.