Get ready to pop champagne! We're getting MARRIED!

We met about four months before Covid, which ended up being just enough time to decide if we liked each other enough to quarantine together when New York went into lock down. Before canceled trips and long TV binge sessions kicked in, we were able to eat and drink our way around the city, take in some Broadway shows, meet a few friends and take one trip to Toronto! (Ask us for our restaurant recommendations if it's on your travel list!) While we were still able to visit James's family in CT and take the annual trip to Pemaquid, Maine with Leigh's family over the last year, we are so excited that some sense of normalcy is returning to we can get back to our travel plans and hugging all of you in person! We can't wait to celebrate with you next year with a bottle (or two) of champagne!

The lead up to the proposal was a classic love story of Covid deception as I had to make up realistic reasons to leave the apartment to secretly ring shop. Once the ring was finished, I made sure to get Leigh’s parent’s blessing as many people do, FaceTiming them in a gas station parking lot after ‘golfing with clients’. Though I was very sneaky, the day before I planned to propose to Leigh, she later told me that she had to admit to her colleague that she had a feeling I was going to propose. This was largely due to my slip up in suggesting we go to the spot of our first date, a bar/restaurant ‘Blueprint’ in Brooklyn before heading over to our friends’, which normally wouldn’t raise any suspicion, but is 30min in the opposite direction, a detail I overlooked. I could sense Leigh’s suspicion and tried everything I could to throw her off the scent, saying I was dressing casual to see our friends and suggesting we take the less fancy bottle of champagne to their house. Leigh stated on the walk over that she had forgotten tissues to which I asked ‘what would you need tissues for?’. We sat in the back garden area at Blueprint and I had planned to propose when she stood up at some point, which never happened, so when the bill came I had to make my move. I slid into the seat next to her and popped the question, to which she kept asking ‘is this real?’, maybe we should cut down on pranks around the house, and the rest is history! We are excited about our lives together and to celebrate with you all!