Liz's Perspective: In March 2018, my best college girlfriends and I went out to celebrate a birthday, and after dinner we found ourselves at a popular Center City Philadelphia bar, Franky Bradleys, for dancing. A few minutes after we walked in, one of my friends was talking to this cute guy from her work (guess who!). She came over a few minutes later and to my surprise, Ryan was behind her. He shook my hand and offered to buy me a drink, which I gladly accepted. After a fun night out, we exchanged numbers and chatted for a few days. That week, I was feeling a little under the weather and Ryan picked up some Panera soup for me on his way home from work. After that sweet gesture, we started to see each other regularly and soon became inseparable. Since that day, Ryan and I have become best friends and each other's biggest supporters in life. I never would have thought that the guy across the bar would become my future husband. Ryan's Perspective: It was a Saturday night in the month of March when I was living in the city in Fairmount with a few roommates. On that particular night, we wanted to head to our regular Saturday night spot, Franky Bradleys. My friends and I were standing in the upstairs area when I saw one of my colleagues, Amanda. After a few minutes, Amanda brought me over to her group of friends. My eyes immediately were drawn to Lizzy. I was especially excited to meet and talk with her. I still remember to this day what she was wearing. We quickly hit it off and started to chat more. Over the next couple of weeks, Lizzy and I grew very close to each other and developed a strong relationship. She is the love of my life and I can't wait to marry her.

I am a registered nurse and was scheduled to work on Christmas Eve, so I suggested to Ryan that we open gifts on Saturday morning, December 21st. Saturday mornings are always our most valued time together when we are both usually off from work. Once we exchanged gifts, Ryan seemed "off" and was acting very unusually. Ryan was the first to go and opened all of his gifts at warp speed, but without much enthusiasm. It was odd to me that he opened them so quickly, like he had something else better to do, but I naturally shrugged it off and thought nothing of it. Next was my turn to open gifts and to my delight, I opened a box with a beautiful baby blue Patagonia sweater and a pair of sheepskin slippers I had been asking for. This is the good part - just when I thought our gift exchange was over and I had started to clean up the wrapping paper, I turned around and Ryan was holding an open jewelry box with a beautiful diamond ring. "I have one more gift for you, will you marry me?!" My jaw dropped... I began to cry and was flooded with so many joyful emotions. Before Ryan could even take the ring out of the box and slide it on my trembling finger, I quickly grabbed the ring myself and tried it on. It was the PERFECT FIT! We were both so happy and couldn't wait to tell all of our family and friends.