If you live in the NJ area, there's a 100% chance you're familiar with Hoboken's Santacon (a bar crawl where everyone dresses up in their most festive Christmas outfits). While living with my two roommates Julie and Katie, we decided it would be fun to host a Christmas brunch for all of our girlfriends and then hit the town for Santacon once the younger/wilder crowd had gone home. After taking over the dance floor of Mills Tavern and dancing our hearts out for hours, we started to wind down from the mimosas we'd had earlier in the day. As all of us girls were standing around chatting, I noticed a guy walk into the bar and immediately I was smitten. I quickly told all of my friends "that guy is SO my type" and they wasted no time individually approaching him to relay the message and introduce us. After my fifth friend had approached the poor guy, I intervened and said "YES, we've met and his name is Trevor. Now please stop bothering him." Once my friends had taken a hint, Trevor and I started chatting the night away and I knew the day would be one I'd never forget. When my friends were all ready to head home for Hoboken's finest late night pizza, Trevor and I exchanged numbers and I didn't even make it back to my apartment (3 blocks for context) before he texted me asking to take me out on a date. From there we quickly realized that Rihanna's lyrics can in fact reign true..."we found love in a hopeless place".

What started off as a normal Saturday morning at our favorite workout class followed by lattes at our favorite Hoboken coffee shop, would turn out to be a weekend we would never forget. This Saturday in particular I had told Heather I had planned brunch with my parents, when in reality it was set up for the proposal of a lifetime. As we returned home from the coffee shop to get ready for the rest of the day, my nerves began to set in. In nontraditional fashion, as soon as we arrived home I immediately got dressed for "brunch" even though we had quite a bit of time before we needed to leave. Heather seemingly brushed this off, with my nerves thankfully hidden just enough to not blow my cover. Just before we were ready to leave, as I was privately taking my deep breaths and quadruple checking I had the ring box in my pocket, Heather made a quick last-minute outfit change (that she would later state she was thankful for) and we were out the door headed to uptown Hoboken. With my nervous thoughts speeding through my brain, we made the 10 minute drive into Hoboken to which I promised Heather “I know the perfect place to park”, which was a garage close to the waterfront where I had planned for a photographer to meet us and capture the proposal. In a perfectly schemed manner, I had asked my mother to text me promptly at 1:54PM (prior to our 2PM “reservation”) claiming they were running late and needed to push the reservation back. With my plan falling into place, I asked Heather if she wanted to walk to the waterfront since it was a nice day and we had some time to kill. As we walked to the water, my nerves really began to kick in. What I would later be told was “heavy breathing” began to tip Heather off just slightly as to what was happening. As we walked to the waterfront, I immediately bee-lined for a picturesque position trying to search out where the photographer had been hiding. With words rehearsed and ready to go, they were immediately thrown out under the immense pressure of the moment. I looked at Heather, told her I was nervous, said I love you and got down on one knee. Much to her surprise (thankfully I didn’t ruin it by all my heavy breathing), she was so speechless and taken back that it took her a little bit to finally say yes. We were later told by the photographer that Heather gave the most surprised and animated proposal reaction she had ever seen -- turns out the fake brunch reservation really did throw her off! What followed this moment was 12 hours (and many days afterwards) of sheer bliss. I had planned dinner in New York for us at Quality Italian, with a hotel reservation that followed to celebrate our engagement. After chatting with loved ones who were eagerly awaiting the outcome of the proposal, we headed into the city on the happiest PATH trip of our lives. After checking into the hotel, we headed to dinner which was followed by a spontaneous drop-in to a cocktail bar nearby that overlooked Central Park. Not wanting the night to end, Heather and I made our way back to our hotel room which became the scene for our personal concert, with music on the provided Bluetooth speaker headlined by our favorite artists (mainly John Mayer and Luke Combs of course) without a care in the world until nearly 3AM.