To be honest, I can't remember the exact day we met - a cardinal sin of dating, I know. We've since imposed September 15th as our arbitrary anniversary placeholder. That's been a running joke between us all of these years, with one of us inevitably saying, "I can't remember exactly when I met you, but you're stuck with me now!" We met at our alma mater when I was a college senior and he was a college junior. His roommate conveniently failed to show up for the hike that weekend (thanks Zak) and so it was just the two of us as we hiked through the autumn-leaved Hudson Valley that fall. We talked about our shared experiences as a camp counselors and volunteering at schools, as well as eSports, anime, etc. The only conclusion I came away with was that I'd found a hiking buddy, not a romantic partner. I didn't think much about the "date" until I got a text message later that day (I still have the screenshot of it): "Hey, I really enjoyed hiking with you earlier. I think you're pretty cool. Do you want to go see a horror movie?" (the new IT remake had just come out) If there is anything to know about me, it is that I do NOT watch horror movies. However, I decided to go and actually found myself laughing at Pennywise and enjoying myself so much that I accepted his invite to go to a few more movies over the next two weeks. We also took a few drives and I learned more about him: he was Captain of his eSports team, we both hailed "Avatar the Last Airbender" as a hallmark of our childhoods, we both wanted to live abroad for a year, and that he drank four cups of coffee a day. He was engaging, funny, unbothered, candid, and a new word that I taught him - he was a "Maverick". Then, on our way back from one of those movie dates, he turned down the music in the car and asked if I wanted to "continue this...as his girlfriend". He was earnest and gentle about it. But I said "no". Listen. I wasn't ready, folks. Not yet. However, he still asked me to grab lunch over the next two weeks. Finally, I realized I had to make a decision: let him go and give him a chance to find someone else if it wasn't going to be me. The only thing was, I did want it to be me. After about 2 seconds of deliberation, I went back to him later that week and asked if he would be my boyfriend. To which he said, "No". I'm just kidding, he said yes. The rest, as they say, is history...because, well, it is. We say now that we kinda grew up into adulthood together, having met each other when we were 21 and 20 respectively. We shared a lot of life's "firsts": our respective graduations, our first jobs, our first paychecks, our first move outs, our first promotions... the list goes on. I know that we will continue to have many "firsts", but it's these shared milestones that we can look back on now and remember the other championing us from the sidelines or standing with us hand in hand through these new experiences. - Olivia

Shortly before we moved in together, I knew I wanted to propose to Olive. We'd been together (at that point) for 4 years, and I'd known for a long time that I wanted her to be my partner for life, which meant it was time to start ring shopping. I always told myself that when it was time to propose, I wanted to design the ring myself. Thinking about Olive, I wanted something that fit her, her uniqueness, and something that represented us and our journey together. Besides landing on a three-stone design, I didn't know whether the ring would have a sapphire center stone or a diamond center stone. So, over the next five months, I worked with our jeweler, Tom, and my mom to craft a design that incorporated these elements in different ways. This was especially hard as Olive doesn't wear jewelry and had no idea about her ring preferences when I would try to secretly try to show her TikToks featuring rings to see what she thought. Ultimately, I finalized what I thought was the final ring design. I had a 3D prototype in hand and it was sent to go into production that week. The design: a sapphire center with diamonds on the side. Last minute, my mom (not so secretly) asked Olive what her dream ring looked like - she said she wanted a DIAMOND center with sapphires on the side. I panicked and called our jeweler. Luckily, he was able to do a quick turn around and switch the sapphire center for a diamond one. Phew! Another thing I knew months ahead of proposing was that I wanted the proposal to be in an extremely special, meaningful place: Japan. Since I studied in Japan, and had been promising to take Olive since we began our relationship (especially since we love to travel together), it was the perfect place to propose. I had three potential locations for the proposal: in front of Mt. Fuji (Chureito Pagoda), Hakone-jinja shrine, or at the top of the Thousand Torii Gates in Kyoto. It would all depend on the weather at each of these locations to decide if that would be spot. After we spent a few days in Hakone, I was becoming hopeful that the proposal would happen at the Hakone Shrine. Then the day came. All was going well at first. In the morning, we went to museums, rode the railway, and then finally took a cable car over the mountain and then down Lake Ashi below. But then...we missed our bus. It was a three mile walk to the shrine without a bus! For the next hour, we hiked those three miles (at breakneck speed) until we reached the shrine. This entire time, I was distracting Olive with the scenery and talking about our trip, all while I was sweating internally, afraid we wouldn't make it in time before the sunset. Once we got there, we were in for another shock: an hour-long line of people waiting to take their picture at the shrine! I was sweating bullets now. The sun was setting rapidly. At the last minute of sunlight (we were, in fact, the last couple to have sunlight in our picture!), we pushed to the front of the line and walked out on the stone pier. After a few poses, I got on my knee and said, "I've been waiting a long time to say this to you..." She had no idea just how long! But the rest is history and we both say to this day that the ring and the proposal couldn't have been more perfect. There's always a story behind the picture! I am thankful for every day that I get to be with Olive, and I can't wait to call her my wife.