We met at a mutual friend's birthday party at a classy and upscale gay bar back in 2013. One of us felt a spark but respected the fact that the other was taken at the time. After three years of being friends through friends, we reconnected while Colin was listening to J.K. Rowling's seminal classic "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" on audiobook in Central Park and Andrew happened to join in on a small group hang out that afternoon. Colin complimented Andrew's eyes, bought him frozen yogurt, and asked him on a coffee date at 8am on a workday that next week because they were both working late nights. Andrew was so nervous that he woke up at 5am and had an entire pot of coffee before their first date at Joe Coffee on the Upper West Side.

Family is so important to both of us — so from our earliest conversations about getting engaged, we both knew we wanted to do it around the holidays so that we could be with our loved ones and share this special moment in our lives with them. We also knew that we’d both be *very* opinionated about our engagement/wedding rings, as neither of us are used to wearing jewelry and both of us are pretty “type A.” One of us (Andrew) had a million questions to ask about every ring at every store, and one of us (Colin) knew he would get “the feeling” when he found the right ring. We quickly learned that surprising one another was out of the picture! Instead, we decided to purchase our rings together and keep it a secret, so that we could surprise our families and friends later on. COVID threatened to throw a wrench into our holiday travel plans, but after lots of testing we all decided to make the trip home to the Midwest to spend Thanksgiving with Andrew’s family. We spent a night up at Lake Geneva, WI, where Andrew had spent his summers growing up - as had his father before him, and his grandfather before that - and is a special place for him and his family. Lake Geneva also became Colin’s “happy place” during our years together, and our visits every summer are the best days of our year. On the cold, clear morning of November 22, we left to walk the lake path with our ring boxes in tow. We reflected on our four years together, and we talked about our shared values for our future. At the side of the lake, we each took turns getting down on one knee and proposing to one another. We then walked back up to Andrew’s house and asked his parents to come outside, where we surprised them with the news of our engagement. We spent the day calling our family and friends to share the news, and we went back to the lake path to recreate “the moment” together and take photos. If we couldn’t surprise one another, we wanted to be able to surprise everyone else - and we did!