We met while playing on an LGBTQ ultimate frisbee team in Washington, D.C. Sonja, an expert frisbee player and graduate student in D.C. for the summer, joined the team when invited by one of the team's co-captains -- a friend from another team. Britany, who knew nothing about frisbee but liked to run and catch things, joined the team with a friend of a friend of a friend, the team's other co-captain, who promptly disappeared. The two met and immediately were interested in one another -- despite Sonja's disdain for Britany's love of tall athletic socks.

We agreed that we both wanted the opportunity to plan a meaningful proposal for each other. The plan was that one of us would propose sometime last spring when ready and that the other would propose soon after. Because I was a third-year law student at the time, I had for more time than Sonja and so I was able to propose first. Sonja’s family has a tradition of making ravioli together. They do so using a wooden ravioli board, which resembles a very large cutting board with dozens of squares. Over the years we’d looked for one of our own just about everywhere and in every way we could think of -- but to no avail. After the holidays, I reached out to Sonja’s sister and cousin who agreed to stealthily get me the dimensions of their respective family ravioli boards. With the dimensions in hand, I set out researching a few women’s woodworking collectives around the country. I eventually found an amazing woodworker at an amazing organization in Minnesota. After a few months of incredibly midwesternly emails, she completed the beautiful ravioli board -- which I promptly accidentally texted Sonja a picture of and nearly ruined my surprise. Thinking quickly and in a deep panic at the idea of having ruined a surprise months in the making, I decided to tell Sonja that I’d found it online and that it was actually a figure collector’s box. Then, to go farther, I created an entire woodworking personality and fake website in case she asked. You can find it under the woodworking website tab. Luckily, Sonja believed me. I flew out to D.C. over my winter break and set up my proposal. One afternoon I convinced Sonja to take the day off of work early. We went to lunch at the restaurant where we’d gone on our first date. By some twist of fate, the hostess seated us in exactly the seats where we’d sat on that first date. Afterward, we went back to Sonja’s apartment, where I gave Sonja letters I’d been writing to her while away at law school and then the ravioli board and ring.

Britany is a history nerd, and she really loves historical planes (WWII planes, biplanes, etc.) and space exploration. In D.C. there is a popular Air & Space Museum, which displays a small portion of the Smithsonian’s collection of planes and spacecraft. But, most of the collection is housed way out in Northern Virginia in a huge hangar-turned-museum called the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. This museum features the fastest jet ever flown, the first supersonic airliner, and the Discovery Space Shuttle. Britany has wanted to visit for a long time but had never been able to before. I scouted out the museum before-hand to make sure it still had some of Britany’s favorites and to find a good spot to propose away from most of the crowds. To keep up the surprise, I planned our visit to take place on our way back into town from a weekend trip out in Virginia and just told her we were going on a little adventure before heading back home. Not wanting to cut short her experience of finally visiting the museum, when we arrived I made sure that she got to see the whole thing. We even purchased the museum’s self-tour headphones and video players, which Britany loves to do at pretty much every museum we visit. We looked very cool wearing the neon orange devices around our necks. I planned it so that we ended the tour in the hangar with the Discovery Space Shuttle, which is really impressive and takes up the whole space. I sat Britany down on one of the benches under it and...promptly realized that a tour group with a bunch of MAGA hat-wearing people was right in front of us. Not the ideal onlookers for what I had planned! I stalled for time until they moved on, but as I began my proposal... a small child toddled up to us very excited to say “hi” and interrupt whatever we were doing. This interruption was just enough to make us laugh and keep us from crying too much. His mother eventually retrieved him, and I managed to finish asking Brit to marry me, and she said yes!