Once upon a time, in a small apartment in Brooklyn, a girl named Samantha spent more time than she'd care to admit swiping her thumb across a dating app called Tinder. If her thumb went left (as it frequently did...) that meant, "Thank you, but no." And if she swiped right? You probably can guess... it meant she'd like to say hello. One fine day, her thumb came across the photo of a man rocking an apron in the kitchen. His bio said: "I can whistle the entire solo in 'Me and Julio Down By The School Yard.'" Sam swiped right. Fifty miles away, in the rolling hills of northern New Jersey, a guy named Joseph was also trying his hand at the Tinder game. Swiping left and right, here and there, his thumb finally came across a photo of a girl in a floral sundress, attempting to hold a football and make it look natural. Her bio said something about collecting too much stationary. Joe swiped right. To this day, they aren't sure how it happened. Tinder, they learned, uses distance-based algorithms to match people who are physically near one another. From Joe's door in Jersey, over the Hudson River, through Central Park, across the East River, into Brooklyn, and to Sam's door used to take three hours on a good day! But somehow it happened. The app sent the pair a notification. "It's a Match!" And the rest, as they say, is history. Since they're about to get hitched, Joe and Sam would like to extend a special thank you to Tinder's malfunctioning algorithm for making their acquaintance. After all, if it weren't for Tinder, we wouldn't be here today.

On a cold evening in February, in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Joe and Sam met for the first time. He picked her up outside the theatre where she was stage managing a play, and together they drove downtown. He took her to a famous comedy club in the East Village. They devised a plan, in the event that they were seated in the front row and a comedian decided to pick on them. (Under no circumstances would they divulge that it was their first date! They would pretend they'd been married for years!) Luckily, disaster was averted and the show went on without incident. They laughed until Sam's cheeks hurt and Joe couldn't catch his breath. That spark continued even after the show, as they enjoyed a feast of enchiladas and guacamole at a nearby cantina. And then, it kept on burning as they finished the night with some coffee and cupcakes at sweet little bakery. At the end of the evening, Joe drove Sam to her subway stop. He kissed her goodnight. And then, he drove three hours back to New Jersey, and she rode the L train all the way into Brooklyn, and they both couldn't wait to see each other again.

Joe and Sam agreed to get married many times before they made it official. The first proposal happened over a text message in February of 2014, before they had even laid eyes on one another. Having been matched up by Tinder, and enchanted by written chemistry, Sam impatiently told Joe that he should probably take her on their first date. And so he said, "Would you like to go on a date with me?" And she, of course, said yes. The second proposal occurred in the parking lot of a burger joint that April, parked in a car, waiting to drive back to the train station after a day spent together. In those days, they saw each other once a week -- always after long commute involving hours of subways and trains and car rides. Joe held Sam in his lap, and he said, "Would you like to be my girlfriend?" And she, of course, said yes. The third happened shortly after the second, when the two decided to drive across the country on month-long road trip. The fourth, when they moved from the East Coast to Las Vegas. The fifth, when they adopted a puppy together: the sweet Penny Lane. The sixth, when they purchased a brand new house, and watched construction from the ground up. Hundreds of mini-proposals happened in and around the big ones: all those times the two made plans together, and spoke of the future, and talked of hopes and dreams. For Joe and Sam, all these little wishes were proposals and promises in their own right. But the seventh (and best) proposal happened on the day that Joe and Sam moved into that new house: April 29, 2017. Surrounded by painter's plastic and moving boxes, on bended knee and holding a little velvet box, he finally said, "Will you marry me?" And she, of course, said yes.