Once Upon A December

One summer night in June of 2012, despite having graduated high school together four year prior, Gabby and Mike, who certainly knew of each other but never formally met, did so at Shane’s house. Gabby, and Ariana decided to keep their nightly summer fun down low and went over to Shane’s house to crash his jam session with Rich and “Shapiro”. Before the girls could get there, Rich decided to bail, but for some reason, Mike decided to hang out longer. From the moment Gabby saw Mike that night she knew they would spend every day together (at least for that summer 😉) and Mike asked for her number. Already smitten, Gabby was super excited when Mike texted her to confirm hanging out at the Ritzer’s house that following Thursday. She did have pretzels handy (Mike’s favorite snack) just in case. It must have been the summer nights, or as Mike recently admitted, Isolina’s “rice and shrimp”, because that following month, on July 30, 2012, Gabby and Mike made their relationship official. For the win.

Poor Mike - he planned the perfect proposal...but everything went wrong. But if you ask Gabby, it was a perfect day. Mike's plan was to completely reenact one of their first and most romantic dates. This took place in New Hope, Pennsylvania. After walking around downtown for quite some time, Mike wanted to take Gabby back to the little Italian restaurant, Villa Vito off of Bridge Street, where 5 years prior, they enjoyed a delicious meal alone on the back patio. Little did Mike know; the restaurant was closed on Wednesdays. Mike decided this was unacceptable and proceeded into the kitchen where he looked for someone to open the restaurant. Gabby thought he was completely insane and convinced him to give up and grab something at a restaurant they'd never tried before. (Good thing, because Mike really liked his dinner that night). Mike planned that after dinner they'd go down to the riverside walkway to look at the ducks on the water. He planned to point at an imaginary duck to distract Gabby and have the gorgeous ring he had designed for her waiting for her when she looked back to him. Unfortunately for Mike’s plans, New Hope was undergoing construction and the riverbank was closed. It was okay, if they couldn’t walk along the riverbank, they’d walk along the stream near the train tracks, since Gabby loves trains so much anyway. While Gabby was preoccupied looking at ducks, Mike got down on one knee, tapped her on the shoulder, and proposed. Happiest Day Ever.