Ed and Ellen met in a very original and totally unique way… On the internet! Online dating, or dating in general, can be awkward and uncomfortable. However, Ed and Ellen both knew from very early on that they were meant for each other. Their first meeting was at Edamame for sushi. Ed knew the restaurant and arrived early, except Ellen had beaten him there and she already had a table. “Upstairs,” she told him via text message. Ed walked straight through the restaurant to the stairs and was almost to the top when he looked and saw Ellen. There she was at a table, and looking positively gorgeous, and also up a different staircase in the other upstairs section of the restaurant. Needless to say, everything went swimmingly, their first date was nearly seven hours long, and now as they make their way into their seventh year together, they are embarking on a new adventure: marriage.

Everyone at some point imagines the “perfect” proposal, the moment that marks the next step in commitment to their partner. Ed generally would consider himself to be a patient person, willing to wait for the right moment or the best opportunity. However, as we all know, 2020 changed nearly everything. It was these changes in the world that made Ed stop looking for that perfect moment. On July 4, 2020, Ed asked Ellen to marry him in his parents’ living room. This meant two things: his family would be there to see it, and so would his family’s dogs. Ellen was sitting on the couch, petting Harvey, Peter’s dog when Ed tried to kneel down and ask Ellen to marry him. Harvey is a good boy, but he is also rather large for a labrador retriever, so when Ellen stopped petting him for a moment, Harvey decided it was time for him to give out some pets. This leads to his large golden paw smacking Ellen across the side of her face, at the exact moment Ed is holding out the box with Ellen’s engagement ring. You can’t recreate that moment, so Ed just asked anyway. Was it a “perfect” proposal? Absolutely not. It was no scouted location with a picturesque backdrop for social media. It certainly didn’t go the way it was planned to, thanks to a big friendly dog. Ed didn’t say any of the things he had thought of or rehearsed a hundred times in his head. Despite that, it was Ed’s proposal and Ellen said yes. None of it went how it was planned, it wouldn’t make a great social media clip, it wasn’t “perfect”. Yet, that is what makes it special. Like the relationship Ed and Ellen share, it was unique, full of laughs, and impossible to duplicate. That, in and of itself, is pure perfection.