Erica was going out to celebrate her friend Danielle's birthday at Dominic's Tavern. While waiting for the guest of honor to arrive, she and her best friend Alicia hung out at the bar. From her corner seat, Erica noticed a guy in a black hat with a thick beard and said to Alicia "he's cute"! As fate would have it the bearded gentleman aka John, and his friend Matt came and sat right next to them. Alicia, being the wonderful "wing woman" that she is, struck up a conversation with them and Erica & John started talking...and the rest is history.

I had been bugging John to take me on the Spirit of Philadelphia. Finally we decided to do it for my birthday and I mentioned inviting our parents (making things easy for John's grand plan without even knowing!!). All of my friends were insisting John was going to propose on the boat but I know John better than that, too many people around and we said no proposing on special occasions because it would be too obvious. So I kept insisting he was NOT going to propose on the boat. After dinner, my mom kept suggesting that we take photos outside on the deck, finally I was like ok, I thought she was a little tipsy...Turns out, she wanted John to get a move on asking me. So we went out on the deck to pose for a picture and John got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Luckily John's sister, Monica was there to capture it all on video so we have that memory forever. And, technically it wasn't my birthday...it was the day after!!