Five days after (unknowingly!) spending their last New Year's Eve apart, Emily and Kyle both ventured out on a cold and windy Friday night. Emily was looking to continue her evening with a few co-workers somewhere they could play pool, while Kyle was actually on a first date! As luck would have it, they both spontaneously ended up at Beantown Pub in downtown Boston, and on pool tables right next to each other. Emily even has Snapchat videos from that night where Kyle is in the background! After merrily co-existing (and maybe sharing some flirtatious glances across the room), the groups started chatting after one of Emily’s co-workers clumsily fell on Kyle’s pool table and messed up the game. To apologize, Emily decided that tequila shots were in order and bought a round for the group. They cheers’d and it was that moment Kyle decided he liked Emily’s fun and inviting energy. When the night was winding down, Kyle said goodbye to his date and was planning to head home in order to wake up early the next morning for an 8am soccer referee clinic. On his short walk to the T, Kyle’s intuition was telling him to turn around and go back before never crossing paths with the tequila-wielding mystery woman again. So he did! Emily was surprised to see Kyle enter the bar again - he must have forgotten something - and was even more surprised when he came up to her and asked for her number. Turns out he HAD forgotten something! They exchanged numbers, chatted until closing, and made a plan to see each other again the following week - the rest is history!

A few months after our fortuitous meeting, Kyle moved back to Connecticut to pursue a new job opportunity. Despite the distance, and while only having known each other a short time, we decided to put in the effort to make things work - traveling back and forth between the two states at least every other weekend. After a year and a half of long-ish distance, a plan started to form - eventually Kyle would move back to Boston but the timing wasn’t totally nailed down yet. Then… March 2020 rolled around and turned everyone’s lives upside down. Kyle came up to Boston for what we thought would be one week of working remotely together, which turned into him never leaving! We spent the rest of lockdown like most people - isolating with each other doing puzzles, cooking new recipes, attending virtual game nights, and getting out for walks whenever we could. In August 2020, we moved into our first apartment together in the North End of Boston, and in January of the following year, we rescued a 6 month old kitten. Poppy is a spicy Calico with sass and cat-itude, and we couldn’t give her more attention if we tried. She won’t be celebrating with us in person on 9/7, but she makes a subtle appearance on the back of our Save the Dates - see if you can find her! In September 2022, we moved to Salem, MA (only a 30 minute train ride north of Boston) in order to get more space and change things up a bit. Living in the ‘Witch City’ has been a fun, new adventure - it’s especially crazy in September and October leading up to Halloween! When we’re not dodging witches around town, we spend our free time exploring the North Shore of Massachusetts in search of fun, new hikes and spots to hang out by the water (i.e. Coolidge Reservation in Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA where we took our engagement photos above!). We also still do our best to take advantage of living near a big city, often going to sports games, concerts, and enjoying the ~30 minute drive to the airport whenever we go on out of town trips. Kyle (finally!) proposed in August 2023 :) Like all big decisions, this was one we made together but Kyle managed to pull off a surprise, popping the question on a beach in Delaware during a trip with some friends from Brown (Suite<3s & Mates!). And that brings us to now! We’re looking forward to continuing our journey by making things official on 9/7/24 and celebrating with you all, our nearest and dearest! <3 Emily & Kyle