It turns out that our families have known each other for decades. In the 1950s, both our grandparents were raising their families in Lexington, Massachusetts and attending the same social club. Jimmy Caouette & Drew Hurley grew up playing peewee hockey together as kids. In the 1980s, Sharon Caouette & Lara Hurley were the best of friends at Lexington High School (and remain as such today!) Then in 2018, Sharon met Alex for the first time at an event for his and Lara's family company: Hurley Wire & Cable. Sharon had a feeling right away that there would be a connection between the two of us and began trying to plant the seed in both our minds. After neither of us took her too seriously, she pointedly gave Andrea's phone number to Alex and told him to "either call her, or don't". Finding out about this the next day, Andrea was certain that he'd never *actually* reach out. But Alex called Sharon's bluff, and proved Andrea wrong, by reaching out two weeks later. February 28th, 2019 was the first (and last) blind date either of us ever went on and the rest is history!

Andrea had a work trip planned to Rome in early February, which happened to line up with a European ski trip Alex and his friends were trying to organize. We decided to fly out to Rome a few days early so we could spend some time together before Andrea's meetings began, and before Alex met up with his friends to ski in France. Our first night in Rome we had dinner reservation at Alfredo alla Scrofa (where fettucine alfredo was born!). Our hotel was right near the Borghese Gardens, and Alex knew that Andrea had never been and wanted to go. It was the perfect, sunny afternoon so Alex casually suggested that we walk through the gardens on our way to dinner. After walking through the park and ending up at a beautiful look out point with the Vatican in the distance, we stopped and took a selfie. A few seconds later, Alex was on one knee asking Andrea to marry him and Andrea said yes! As Alex put the ring on her hand, Andrea looked up and realized there was a woman walking towards them with a big smile and a camera. The woman was Francesca, a local photographer, who Alex had hired to capture the moment. (It was revealed later that the selfie was his signal to Francesca that the proposal was about to happen!) After capturing our surprise photos, Francesca took us around for a series of engagement photos throughout the Borghese Gardens and on Rome's famous Spanish Steps. We ended the afternoon Facetiming our families from the Spanish Steps before going to a wine bar to celebrate with a bottle of prosecco!