Specifically at The Boathouse in Belmar, NJ on a “Boathouse Tuesday” listening to Erika’s favorite DJ, DJ Jersey Joe, and bonding over our love for 80’s music on a summer night in June 2009. “The first time we hung out after initially meeting at The Boathouse, Todd serenaded me with “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley and pretty much the rest was history.” - Erika “We had so much fun. She instantly felt like my best friend and I fell in love.” - Todd

It was the Saturday night before Super Bowl in February 2020. Todd and Erika were hosting a Superbowl party the next day so Todd suggested they “take it easy and go out to a nice dinner”. Shortly before they planned to leave for dinner, Erika was getting ready in the bedroom and Todd asked her to come to the living room to have a drink before they left. When Erika came out to the living room Todd was waiting with two glasses of champagne. They cheers’ed and Todd said “let’s listen to some music”. After about a minute of listening to music, Todd proceeded to take out and setup their karaoke machine. Although it seemed like a little much for a pre-dinner cocktail, Erika is certainly always down for some karaoke and didn’t think much of it. Todd put his “first song” on and out of the speakers came “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. Even though Todd serenaded Erika with this song back when they first met, they actually never really listened to it again so it was a fun surprise when Erika heard it. After nailing the first verse like a seasoned pro, it seemed like Todd had forgotten the lyrics when he began the second verse. Instead of singing “we’ve known each other for so long 🎶” Todd sang “we’ve been together for ten years🎶” and each lyric to follow was changed to be about their story, up until Todd cut the music, got down on one knee and proposed... all while still on the mic. “After being together for so many years, I knew we were planning to get engaged at some point, but the way Todd proposed made it such a surprise. I never could have imagined that would be the way he would do it. I loved it so much, it was so creative and so us. We missed our dinner reservation and spent the rest of the night FaceTiming our families, friends, and celebrating... with a lot more karaoke of course.” - Erika “It was a long time coming, something I wanted to do for a long time, and when she said yes it was one of the happiest days of my life.” - Todd