Chad and Cheryl first “met” in December 2019 while they were both in the Cary/Raleigh area of North Carolina. Chad was living in Orlando, Florida at the time, and would travel back to upstate New York for Christmas. To get some extra time with friends, he’d ride down to North Carolina with Kevin and Neala Campbell, stay for a couple nights, then fly the rest of the way back down to Florida. One morning, post-bowel movement, Chad opened the dating app, Bumble, and swiped right on Cheryl. Call it serendipity or good fortune, but before Cheryl headed out to Lexington, North Carolina, she had already swiped right on Chad, so they were instantly matched. While talking early on, Chad revealed that he was only passing through North Carolina, but they continued talking since Cheryl is from Florida. After increasing conversations over the phone, Cheryl decided to make a trip down to Orlando to officially meet Chad (FaceTime doesn’t count as meeting somebody). She had an easy out if things were awkward, as her old roommate, Dajana lived in Orlando. They had their first official date on the weekend of Valentine’s Day 2021, going to see the Orlando Solar Bears hockey match, after stopping in to get the approval of Matt Newman and Natalie Stevens. As you can see, the weekend didn’t turn out to be too awkward.

Once Chad decided Cheryl was the one for him, he contacted her old roommate from North Carolina, Kori, as he knew they had visited a jewelry store on a couple occasions. Hoping to simply get a few preferences for what Cheryl wanted, reaching out to Kori turned out to be much more. The jewelry store had a sister store down in Boca Raton, Florida, very close to where Chad and Cheryl were living at the time. Kori and her jeweler, Mac, flew down and met Chad at the store while Cheryl was out of town one weekend. Fortunately for Chad, there were few decisions he had to make, and the ring was ordered. Once the ring arrived in South Florida, he looked at the calendar to find the perfect day to pop the question. Seeing that Katrina’s daughter, Brooklyn, was having her 7th birthday party on a Sunday in July, Chad and Katrina organized a trip to Tampa so he could propose with a bunch of her friends around. Unfortunately, a work trip foiled these plans, forcing a pivot. Following the theme of getting help from Cheryl’s friends, Kazlene came to the rescue to help organize new plans. With Chad having the day off from work on Monday, July 3rd, Kazlene invited them to a casual beach day, as she knew she could convince Cheryl to play hooky from work. As they had much more than a casual beach day planned, Chad brought one of Cheryl’s favorite board games, Rummikub, to the beach. Even though Cheryl introduced Chad to the game, she’s no longer able to beat him. Fortunately for Cheryl, Chad didn’t really have plans to play that day. After waiting for the amateur-could-be-professional photographer Vince (Kazlene’s husband) to arrive at the beach, Kazlene took Cheryl to the bathroom to allow time for Chad to set up the proposal. Instead of the normal numbered game pieces, he modified them to spell out “Marry Me?” and the original wedding date they had circled on the calendar, “05/25/2024.” Cheryl and Kazlene came back from the bathroom while Vince was in the middle of a mini photoshoot (side note: Cheryl did not find it odd that Vince had his camera out at the beach because he’s dramatic and this is normal behavior LOL). As Cheryl came towards Chad, he handed her the board. As expected, Cheryl got angry and accused Chad of cheating because each player should choose their own numbers and set up their own board. Chad was very persistent that Cheryl take the board that he made and to look at the board. Finally, Cheryl did, and she saw what the board actually said. When Cheryl looked up from the board Chad was on one knee with ring box and popped the question. Cheryl did not expect it at all, and she was so happy that she was for once at a loss for words. After she said yes, they popped their favorite bottle of champagne, Vince took pictures, and they enjoyed the rest of their not-so-casual beach day.