We matched on Bumble and after a few weeks of stimulating - albeit sporadic - conversation, we finally scheduled a date for January 11, 2021. There is always a bit of unease for friends and family about the idea of going to meet a stranger from the internet so, naturally, we wanted to relieve some of that discomfort by meeting outside in an empty field in Valley Forge National Park in the middle of January and staying until after the sun went down. There really weren't many other options (it was covid, pre-vaccines!!), but we wouldn't trade those five and a half hours in the cold for any other kind of first date if we could. January 11th was a Monday. The next time we saw each other was...Tuesday. We picked up lunch from Sweetgreen, we went to the Apple store to return a phone case and told the employee who helped us that it was our second date, but that we could already confidently invite her to our wedding (shout out Cheryl!!), we went back to Jamie's house and sat in her backyard until nightfall again, and Jeremy met both of Jamie's parents. Wednesday was the only day that first week that we didn't see each other, and by Friday we had fallen in love. Now, one thing you have to understand is that when we met, we were both living with our parents outside of Philadelphia. Jamie had just started her job at Skadden, and it was her plan to move back to NYC in March. It would have been ridiculous to expect her boyfriend of two months to up and move to New York with her during a pandemic, so she adjusted her plan a little bit. She got an apartment close to home, which was great because it created an opportunity for us to...move in together after two months and adopt two cats together just a few weeks later. Some might say that what really happened was that Jamie called Jeremy to let him know she would be bringing two kittens home in about 30 minutes, and if he didn't like that he could leave. But never mind those whispers; we love our smooshers dearly. Fast forward to cuffing season 2022 and the time had come to put a ring on it, as it were. Jeremy's main priority was surprising Jamie. He didn't even want her to know that he had a ring. But of course, on the fateful day, her nails have to be looking fresh, and suddenly becoming involved in the status of Jamie's nails out of the blue would have no doubt aroused suspicion. So to throw her off the scent, we started getting manicures together every couple of weeks. December came, Jeremy had a ring made, and a plan began to form. We were going to be home for the holidays with Jeremy's family before meeting Jamie's family in Key West. Our two-year anniversary was a few weeks later, but we wouldn't have been home then, so we made a plan to recreate our first date. On the morning of December 24th, everything was set. We wore the same clothes we wore on our first date, we went to the same spot, we brought the same soccer mom chairs from Jamie's house, we brought wine and snacks (and Jeremy hid a bottle of champagne). The only hiccup was that, this time, there was a polar vortex and the wind chill was below 0 degrees. About 10 minutes into the "date," Jeremy couldn't wait any longer and popped the question. Jamie said, "SHUT THE F*** UP," which Jeremy took to mean YES, and next thing we knew (after our fingers defrosted), we were popping bottles.