We are Getting Married.... Again!

Peter organized a ski trip with his company. When he heard that the new hire at the company was a big time skier he wanted to welcome her to the company and convince her to join the ski trip. All through the 3 hour car-ride the two skiers talked and laughed and swapped stories until they arrived at the mountain. Unfortunately the skiing was cut short when Peter fell and broke his collar bone. She ended up taking him to the hospital, driving him home, and even calling his parents. By the end of the day she got to know Peter a lot more than she bargained for. It turned out the new hire was Ali, one of Jackie's closest friends from college. By the end of the trip she realized that her long time college friend would be a perfect match for this clumsy, weird yet amazingly cute, handsome, buff guy (those last 3 adjectives were definitely not written by Peter himself, cause that would be unseemly). Ali told Peter about her friend, and that a date was a MUST. Unfortunately, he was in Boston, and Jackie was in Chicago. But 7 months later, a Halloween Bar Crawl brought Peter to the Windy City. He remembered Ali telling him about this perfect girl, and so asked if she would go on a date. And so it was that Peter met Jackie on 10/25/2018 at Bar Sienna. And the rest, as the cliche goes, was history...

Peter planned the proposal for over five months. It involved the coordination of his entire immediate family as well as Jackie's and finding a date that worked for all 18 people. The plan was a brunch then later in the day: bowling and dinner at Lou Malnati's. The tricky part was having to propose early on a Saturday morning when Jackie is normally asleep. The morning of, Peter had setup a large display of flowers in the apartment while Jackie was fast asleep. Peter had to wake her up, and get her to come into the other room (where everything was setup), without arousing suspicion. Therefore, Peter dropped a knife into a pot to make a loud clatter, and then cursed aloud and called for his soon-to-be Fiancée. Jackie came running into the room expecting blood, tears and most terrifyingly, broken dishware. But was instead caught flat footed by Peter on his knee with an open ring box in his palm. The final surprise to Jackie was to arrive as Hub 51 for Brunch, expecting just her parents and brother. Instead she was thrilled to see her sister and brother-in-law from Nashville and Peter's entire family from Connecticut / NYC to be waiting in a private room.