Our story began in the Borgata casino in Atlantic City. We both played live poker in the same poker room, at the same casino, for over a decade. As it turns out, we knew all the same players and dealers, and never crossed paths. That changed on July 28, 2021. Danielle decided to play like any other day, and about an hour into her session, a seat opened up next to her. It was at that time that Anthony walked into the poker room to find a seat. The floor manager told him that there were two seats available, and he could have his pick. Once he saw Danielle, he immediately chose the open seat next to the "pretty girl". While playing poker for a few hours together, they started chatting and eventually exchanged contact information after realizing they had a lot of common interests. Once Danielle left for the night, Anthony kept playing, but they kept texting and decided to meet up for a drink the next night. For Danielle, this was the first person she met while playing poker that she had ever agreed to meet up with. On the other side, after Danielle left, Anthony jokingly texted his boys in their group chat, "I think I met my soulmate at the poker table." The next day, an argument at the poker table resulted in Anthony stopping earlier than expected, so he asked Danielle if she wanted to grab dinner instead of just a quick drink, and she agreed. They met up for dinner that night, and after hours of conversation, they realized they were the last two people at the restaurant, and all the previously dimmed lights were now turned on for closing. After that day, they have been by each other's side ever since.

Every month, Danielle and Anthony have a date night on (or close to) the 28th to celebrate the night they met. This always includes at least a one-night "getaway", a dinner date, and sometimes poker with their celebratory drink - a peach martini (how that became our drink is a whole other story haha). For the two-year anniversary, they decided to recreate the night they met by having a poker night such that they would be playing on the same day and time (7:30PM) they had met two year's before. What Danielle didn't know, is that Anthony had been planning this night for months. In the months leading up to their two-year anniversary, Anthony had arranged to have both families present during the proposal. Although Danielle's parents and one brother live locally, her other brother and Anthony's family live 2.5 hours away. Since Anthony knew he and Danielle would be out of the house for their date night, he planned to have his family and Danielle's brother stay at the house for the night of the proposal. However, he had to time it such that everyone arrived to Borgata first since he couldn't risk Danielle seeing anyone ahead of time in the home security cameras. This proved to be more difficult than expected, because his parent's got stuck in traffic on the drive down, and the proposal was set for 7:30PM. When Anthony and Danielle arrived at the poker room, Anthony insisted she take the open seat facing away from the entrance. At 7:15PM, Anthony's family finally arrived inside Borgata and met up with Danielle's family. At 7:30PM, everyone snuck into the poker room. Once everyone was in their places, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker that there was "a new high hand" and "who is Danielle?". When Danielle turned around, Anthony was down on one knee with an engagement ring, and he asked her to marry him. Both families stood behind him smiling. He pointed up, and all of the TVs in the room that normally show the daily high poker hand promotion instead said "Danielle, Marry Me?" with hearts between the words. Danielle of course said, "yes". Everyone began clapping, and a waitress brought over two peach martinis for them to share as a newly engaged couple.