We met when a mutual friend, Dov, decided to set us up. Max had just gotten out of a relationship, and Caroline was nearing a year of swearing off dating while she finished her dissertation. Within 5 minutes of meeting each other we had bonded over a shared love of good whiskey, local breweries, woodworking, and board games. Max impressed Caroline with his knowledge of game mechanics, and Caroline impressed Max with her knowledge of wood types. After a fantastic first date, Max insisted on coming over the next day to meet Caroline's temperamental rescue dog, Lina. While Caroline was instantly smitten with Max, Lina was more skeptical. Max won Lina over with infinite patience and a lot of treats. When a job opportunity arose for Max in Boston, we made the difficult decision to try long distance while Caroline finished her coding program. As expected, distance was hard but it made our relationship stronger. By Spring 2021, Caroline had landed a coding job and Max had decided to throw out their 5 year plan (that involved waiting a few years to get married) and started planning a surprise proposal. Thinking she was planning a 30th birthday vacation, Caroline found an off-grid cabin on a mountain in the White Mountains, New Hampshire, where they could celebrate her birthday quietly. When they arrived after a tense 4 hour road trip from Boston, in which Max was much more bothered by the traffic than usual, Max insisted Caroline open her birthday gift early. Caroline opened a beautiful hand made wooden box to find a custom wooden Catan set. To say she was thrilled was an understatement. As she opened containers and looked at pieces, she was even more thrilled to find beautiful DND dice and dice boxes. But when she opened the last box she was confused. "Why is there a ring in this dice box?" she asked. It took longer than expected for Caroline to realize Max was getting down on one knee, but no time at all for her to say "Yes!"