While Cupid is famous for aiming his bow, Juliana is famous for aiming her pretzels. The first time Juliana saw James, she assaulted him…by throwing pretzels at him on public transportation in college. While James was preoccupied hanging with his friends, he couldn’t help but admire his future wife’s athletic abilities and her confidence to "aim and fire" in public spaces.

While the infamous pretzel story was the couple’s first encounter, Juliana and James truly became invested with one another in their sophomore scene study class. The two of them were paired together for a romantic comedic scene from the play “Fool for Love” by Sam Shepard. They had to rehearse the scene for multiple weeks, where they quickly became friends both on and off stage. James likes to say their “first kiss” occurred performing the scene in front of their class for the final performance, but Juliana vehemently disagrees…Juliana was just “acting”.

Juliana and James would be remiss if they didn’t give credit to their close friend and James’s college roommate, Devin Gately, for setting them up with each other. Devin befriended Juliana early on at Ithaca during a production of “The Last Five Years” and would constantly come back home to rave about her talent and kindness. When James first started dating Juliana, Devin would let James borrow his car to bring Juliana to her physical therapy appointments off campus, on top of performing many other countless acts of kindness within their relationship. Mr Gately was the ultimate “wing-man” before he became the best man!

James proposed to Juliana on May 4th, 2024, the weekend of their seventh year of being together. James asked Juliana in Astoria Park, where they currently live, not so smoothly, while word-vomiting and forgetting the Shakespearean sonnet (Sonnet 116) he memorized for her to mark the special day. Though Juliana was stunned for nearly five minutes while James was on one knee, she said “Yes”! James brought Juliana to one of her favorite restaurants afterwards, only to be surprised by some of their friends and family!