We both were attending Indiana University of PA when we first met. One day I was walking back from a late class and my friend was sitting outside a dorm hall that was on my way home. Books in hand, I stopped to talked with her and she asked me to play a game of volleyball with her and some new friends, since it was a 70 degree day in November. I initially said no, because I didn’t know anyone they were playing with. Around the time I was saying no, Seán walked up and said, “Yeah, you should play!” Needless to say, I did! We spent a lot of nights hanging out and watching movies with friends and eventually started going off on dates of our own. We had a fast connection and have kept it the same throughout both our good and bad times. We practically lived together in college and moved to Lebanon together in 2017. We’ve helped each other adjust to a new environment, new jobs, and new people. We’ve been each others’ rocks since we met and I can’t believe we’re planning the day to invite all of our friends and family into this love we’ve built.

Seán planned a trip to NYC with myself, my parents, and his parents. Each year for Christmas I’ve gone to NYC with either Seán or a friend. I’ve always loved visiting the city, so a yearly trip is a must for me. Leading up to the trip, I tried to plan a lot and everyone kept telling me that they would do whatever we (Seán and I) wanted to do. Seán suggested Central Park, since we hadn’t been in a bit. When we reached NYC, we went straight to Central Park. It was the furthest thing away from Times Square that we wanted to do and our bus was grabbing us there at the end of the day, so it just made sense. As we walked to the park, a man stopped us to show us all the different stops that the carriages made throughout the park. We had decided that we wanted to see the Bethesda Fountain and started on our way. As we walked down the steps, there was a man playing the accordion and a few other tourists visiting. We stood for awhile overlooking the pond and the next thing I knew, Seán said, “I actually had something planned for today.” As I turned to him, he got down on his knee and asked me to marry him! I said yes, everyone was clapping, and I didn’t even know how the rest of the day could go on after that moment. Right away, I called my family and friends exclaiming that I was engaged. We all cried and laughed together. After all the excitement, we walked to a pub nearby and had a meal. I had a Guinness to celebrate and the owner overheard us celebrating. He brought us a round of baby Guinness shots- on the house. We stayed there for awhile to chat with each other, then walked around Times Square. We had dinner at Bubba Gump’s and ended up having to race back to the bus at the end of the night.