It wasn’t so much love at first sight as it was love at first book. Years after first sitting across from each other in the now infamous molecular biology lab, Emilie sent a message to a familiar looking guy who mentioned that he was reading The Wheel of Time in his online dating profile. Cedric recognized Emilie from Binghamton and after exchanging a few emails they decided to meet in Annapolis. This was the first online date for both of them, and after a brief moment of hesitation on Emilie’s part after seeing the incredible beard that Cedric had cultivated, they ended up spending more than 5 hours exploring downtown together, and the rest is history!

After dragging his feet for a perfectly reasonable amount of time and some extremely subtle hints from Emilie, Emilie’s parents, Cedric’s parents, Cedric’s grandparents, and Gus, Cedric decided to start planning a "surprise" engagement. This was no easy task given Emilie’s background as a forensic scientist (and the fact that she had already picked out her ring). So, when Cedric refused to discuss movie date plans for Beauty and the Beast, Emilie got a little suspicious. The weeks leading up to the movie date were amusing since both pretended that the other had no idea what was going on. When that Saturday afternoon finally came, Cedric took Emilie on a walk downtown recreating their first date and proposed by the water. With the pre-proposal anticipation finally out of the way, they then went for a wonderful dinner followed by Beauty and the Beast - definitely still Emilie's favorite fairy tale!