We're getting married!

During her freshman year of college at the University of Michigan, Daisy’s roommate was dating a boy from Viktor’s college, the University of Illinois. In one, happy incident where her roommate’s boyfriend needed to round up friends to carpool to Michigan together for one of his usual visits, Viktor decided to come along even though he was only a friend-of a friend. On their last day of the trip, Daisy arrived back to her dorm and, soon after a brief introduction, she overheard Viktor speaking Russian on the phone wishing his little sister a happy 13th birthday. As someone who also speaks other languages, Daisy was immediately intrigued. They chatted for a hours afterward about the languages they speak, their immigrant stories, and their families. A few hours later, he headed back home to Illinois and they exchanged Snapchats, not thinking that they would ever see each other again. For whatever reason, Daisy couldn’t stop thinking about Viktor and decided to take the leap of faith - she sent him a message saying how nice it was to meet him and she had to give him her number *just in case* he wanted to reach out. Now this was Viktor’s turn to be intrigued! One message turned into video calls every single night, video calls turned into hours of travel to see each other again and again, and after 3 years of long distance, they finally moved into their first apartment in Boston together.

Viktor’s birthday has always been Daisy’s favorite holiday. This year, Daisy thought, would be extra special because Viktor was turning 25 (a quarter of a century!). She planned to contact his closest friends and family to send him letters that she would include in an advent calendar (25 Days ‘Til 25), where he would unwrap a new letter/gift leading up to his birthday. While Daisy planned a surprise each day for Viktor to unwrap, Viktor was planning his own surprise - a proposal. One of Daisy’s final gifts was a Chicago White Sox/Boston Red Sox baseball game, where she created a group chat with their closest mutual friends, inviting them to the game as a surprise to Viktor. Meanwhile, Viktor created a group chat with the same people (+ Daisy’s best friend and brother who each lived in different states) and explained to them that he was planning to propose to her but needed their help. Their mission: convince Daisy that they needed to meet at Fens Park before the baseball game to throw Viktor a surprise party. They sent her messages suggesting where they should meet and the time. She agreed to everything, thinking that she was being sneaky in convincing Viktor that they should head to the game early and check out Fens Park because “she heard it’s a pretty place”. Little did she know, Viktor was the one sending their friends suggestions to forward to Daisy - the ultimate UNO Reverse card! As soon as they reached the spot where their friends were, Viktor got down on a knee and popped the question. Daisy was completely caught by surprise, but even more so afterward when she noticed her best friend had flown in from Detroit and her brother had flown in from Baltimore for this moment. Cue the celebration!