We hope you're feeling lucky in love this Friday the 13th. We cannot wait to celebrate with you!

Let's set the scene. It is 1999, and Y2K has yet to happen. Your parents decide to send you to Catholic school even though none of them are particularly religious. (sorry, Lisa!) You are a child who lives just outside the city your school is in, so you are assigned the bus for the misfit stragglers on the outskirts of town. It is likely 1,000 degrees outside. Your school has somewhere between 10-100 kids total from Kindergarten to 8th grade. This means you are in everyone's business all the time. You get to know all of the other "outskirts-of-town" kids on your bus. Over the years, you play weird games to pass the time, like truth or dare (lots of bus floor licking). This is where Tyler and I met; on a hot, smelly bus that took us to our remote location homes. Throughout the years, we remained friends. We transitioned from grade school to high school and swapped out our navy uniform pants for beautiful khaki. During this time, we had a few classes together and made sure to tell each other lots of inappropriate jokes. However, in 2011, this 12-year friendship was placed on pause. I busted out of the parochial school system and made my way to the exotic land of Kent, Ohio, to become famous in the fashion world. Tyler held down the fort in Cincinnati. Eventually, joining the Private Events team at Rhinegeist. After a few wrong turns and a desire to come back to the land of Skyline, Greater's, and the scenic Ohio River, I landed a job on the Private Events team at Rhinegeist. If you can't see what happened next, I will help you out. Tyler and I began our courtship. Not the kind where you can only give awkward "side hugs" and have chaperones on your dates, but the kind where you must drink a lot to avoid the feelings that are slowly creeping up to the surface. I weaseled my way into Tyler's weekly trivia nights at Mac's Pizza Pub in Clifton (freaking out sweet Ty Bussey along the way), we worked together every day at Rhinegeist, and we were constantly competing for funniest on the team (Tyler won). After many nights at Knockback Nats, staying up late and talking on the fire escape, sharing music from our emo kid days, and sharing all of our dating woes with each other, Tyler finally hatched a brilliant plan. He would invite me to what is known as "Super Happy Hour" at Murphy's Pub. I saw right through his charade and had fun dashing his hopes by pretending I might not be able to come. Well, I did end up going, and the rest was history. After a smooch out front of Jefferson Social (one of the only times I think fondly of the Banks), we decided to give this thing a go. Now, almost five years later, happily domiciled in our cozy apartment in the CBD with our three cats (RIP Leo), we are so eager and excited to get married. No matter what life has thrown at us (job changes, a quarter-life crisis, a f*****g pandemic), we love tackling it all together. We still think back and giggle about how weird and awkward we were initially, but we are mostly amazed at how easy it has been from the start. There is no one else I would rather go to concerts with, no better road trip buddy, and no funnier person on the planet. When Tyler proposed in front of the Cincinnati Skyline, there was no easier answer. I may have responded by saying, "You little f****r," and snatching the ring from his hand, but Tyler knew that was an unequivocal and resounding YES.