We met during Kate’s first week in dental school at Columbia University. We were at an orientation event when Kate walked up to James and said, “Hi Pizzo, I’m Katie. I know we haven’t met yet but I needed to come say hi.” From there we started studying together, James helped Kate with a fantasy football league, and then they joined a kickball team on Thursday nights. 10.30.14 was our first date at the Mermaid Inn, a restaurant on the upper west side that has $1 oysters for happy hour and a day later was the infamous CDM Halloween party. A few days later we watched our first movie, Good Will Hunting, and that’s when James learned of Kate’s lack of movie and music knowledge. Since then James has made it a mission to have Kate watch anything other than Disney movies. James and Kate spent the first 3 years of their relationship in New York City enjoying as much as they could. It was the start of their relationship and it will always be a part of them.

It was a Friday in October, we were flying into Newark airport to go to the beach with James’s family. A lot of things were going wrong, Kate and Farley got in early and James’s flight was delayed. Kate waited in the airport for nearly 2 hours. The first thing James did was give Farley the biggest hug in the world, then he walked over to me and gave me a kiss. We took a car, hit a lot of traffic, and went to James’s house in Staten Island, because we were going to dinner with our families. Once we got to the house, we let Farley run out back before heading inside. Under the patio, James gave me the biggest hug, I said “I love you, even though you only want to marry me for the dog” and he said “speaking of that..” next thing I knew he was down on one knee. The shock of the proposal warranted a “Are you kidding me? Is this real?” response. I said YES, and we were engaged! We're so excited to celebrate this next chapter in our lives with you.