By the pure happenstance of a shared love of ancient things buried in the ground, Dani and Fabio met on an archaeological excavation in Vulci, Italy in the summer of 2021. Whether it was meant to be or pure coincidence that they ended up on the same project at the same time, we’ll never know. Dani's original excavation that summer in Pompeii was cancelled and so she decided to join a new project at Vulci on the recommendation of a friend. Fabio, meanwhile, was hired by the site director for his unique speciality in underground excavation, being one of the only archaeologists certified to conduct such work. The project's green-light was touch-and-go for many months due to COVID travel restrictions still being in place and the uncertainty of Americans being able to enter Italy at all. Luckily, the stars managed to align and in June, Dani arrived in Italy for what she expected to be just another normal excavation season. It didn't take long for us to realize there was something there. Starting as a friendly relationship, we worked amicably together on site, learning bits and pieces about each other over buckets of dirt and piles of pottery. Smiles were shared and jokes were made. By the second weekend, Fabio just knew he had to take a chance and ask Dani out. From that first date walking along the Mediterranean Sea, neither of us could have anticipated how quickly our love would grow. When the excavation season was at its end, Fabio took Dani to Isola del Giglio, an island off the coast of Tuscany and close to his heart, before her departure back to the states. On the rocky cliffside of the island, the crystal blue of the Mediterranean glittering around them, we said our first "I love you"s and knew that there would be no turning back. The transition from seeing each other every day all day to suddenly being over 3000 miles apart was certainly jarring, but daily phone calls and video calls made the distance and the uncertainty of our next meeting a little less daunting. Then, after four months apart, Fabio came to the United States for the first time and met Dani's friends and family. To say that the welcome was warm is an understatement as they all embraced Fabio enthusiastically and immediately as part of the family. Most importantly, however, Fabio was officially Pearl approved. Another long-stretch of months apart was set before us until finally Dani arrived back in Italy the following summer when she met Fabio’s family and some of his closest friends. Though her Italian is not as good as Fabio’s English, they welcomed her with open and loving arms and put up with her terrible grammar and elementary vocabulary. We spent another long summer together at excavation, Dani took Fabio to Germany to meet her cousins (who fed him within an inch of his life) and it was back to another stretch of waiting. From then on, our lives became a merry-go-round of phone calls and plane rides, talking every day and planning as much travel as possible between the US and Italy to be together. In light of all the time apart and our ever growing love, it came rather naturally that the decision to get married was simply the next step in our journey together. On December 23, 2023, Dani and Fabio celebrated a private civil union with Dani’s family in Rochester, NY. This allowed us to both start the process of obtaining a green card for Fabio so they could live together in the US and plan our wedding in Italy. Though our journey to be together has had to come in bits and pieces, here and there, neither of us could imagine our lives without the other and we both know with sound surety that we can conquer whatever comes next together.