We’re getting married!

The story of Hajji and Michelle started with a simple “swipe right” on a very sophisticated and classy app called Tinder. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Tinder, it’s an online dating app for people only interested in setting up long-term meaningful relationship(s) that lead to marriage... For Hajji, the “swipe right” for Michelle initially started with more casual intentions. He had just moved to DC from Atlanta and was not expecting to meet his future wife within 60 days. For Michelle, the “swipe right” for Hajji was more out of curiosity. She was brand new to Tinder and online dating in general and thought “what is this hunk of a man with this AMAZING non-cliché photo of him hugging a Tiger in Thailand doing on such a site?” She immediately thought, “I must swipe right,” and on 9/25/16, Hajji and Michelle made history by matching on Tinder! Hajji made the first move by messaging Michelle about Yoga. He thought he could impress her with Yoga words he barely knew like Vinyãsa or Chaturanga, but little did he know that Michelle was a yogi goddess. Hajji was immediately intrigued and was quick to suggest a dinner date. After a couple hours of background screening and Facebook/Instagram stalking, Michelle gladly accepted. Michelle and Hajji formally met in person for the first time at Hank’s Oyster bar in Capitol Hill on 10/4/16. The date went so well that they ended up closing the place down and thus began a dating campaign of epic proportion!

Hajji had been racking his brain on how best to propose to Michelle 6 months prior to the actual proposal. Traveling to all the exotic places in the world is one thing, but these adventures can be meaningless without sharing the experiences with the ones you love. One of the most important things to Michelle is family; such that, the perfect opportunity presented itself when Michelle's sister invited them on a family trip to Wrightsville Beach, NC. Hajji thought, what better opportunity than to propose to Michelle in front of the two most important women in her life (mother and sister). The plan of action was to set up a tent on the beach and have an airplane fly overhead with a banner stating the obvious "Michelle, will you marry me?" This required everyone to be on the beach at a certain time and place; however, Hajji quickly learned this was not easy to do with 7 people, including a 5 year old and 2 twin babies! On top of that, the airplane service kept delaying the times due to weather, etc. This did not hold well for Hajji's nerves, yet Michelle was still oblivious, thinking his lack of sleep and agitation to get on the beach was just due to the excitement of being in a new environment. Unfortunately the airplane service had continuous delays over 2 days with finally having to cancel due to unexpected circumstances. With perseverance, on 9/3/18 Hajji made final plans to orchestrate the proposal with the help of Gray, Michelle's brother-in-law. The setting: beautiful beach with gentle sunny skies, minimal clouds in sight, blue ocean crashing in the background, a spread of sandwiches and drinks under a huge tent for everyone's pleasure. Michelle still having no clue, the moment arrives: Hajji begins to play his "proposal" slow jam playlist, takes Michelle's hand, and down on one knee finally proposes!