Our story began on a Fall night at Agava Restaurant in Ithaca, NY. It was Hannah’s roommate’s birthday and she wanted nothing more than to go dancing at the weekly Salsa Night. With more reluctance than enthusiasm, Hannah joined her roommate for a night out with every intention to avoid the dance floor. In doing so, Hannah hung out with her other roommate at the bar drinking Mojitos and displaying every body language cue to suggest she didn’t want to be talked to. Naturally, in enters two guys, Adam and his friend Gael, who apparently didn’t get the message. Adam and Gael were quickly shooed off as Hannah and her friend “didn’t want to talk to undergrads”. As it turns out, they were 2nd year Doctorate students at Cornell University in the Biochemistry, Molecular, and Cell Biology program. With the girls being nutrition students, conversation flowed naturally as they quickly began discussing the overlap between their fields of study - just as you would expect nerdy graduate students from Cornell to do at a salsa bar on a Wednesday night. After effortlessly chatting for a long while, the guys dragged the girls out onto the dance floor and insisted you can’t come to salsa night without dancing. Having never salsa’ed before Hannah was stepping on everybody's toes until it was her turn to dance with Adam. For once, no feet were stepped on!
On August 1st, 2019 I asked Hannah Feinberg to marry me. The proposal happened in the midst of moving and was chaotic to say the least. With the house in complete shambles, Hannah left for work and I decided to push into overdrive. I was able to get our belongings fully unpacked, the house organized and had just enough time to hit the grocery store and prepare for a simple night of cooking in our new home together - or at least that’s what Hannah thought. When Hannah arrived home there were flowers on the table, a rack of lamb in the oven and risotto still on the stove. “Why such a nice dinner?” Hannah asks, “Oh you know, we love to cook and I figured it would be nice to celebrate moving in together with your favorite meal”. Thinking my cover was blown, I asked Hannah to stir the risotto while I hit the restroom. Instead i retrieved the ring and came back to greet her on one knee. Although I had a little speech planned, my nerves took over and the only thing that came out was “will you marry me?”. The rest is history in the making!