As if out of a national ad campaign boasting the company’s inclusivity during Pride month, Gaby and I met through Bumble. She was the first one to make a move, sending a corny dad-joke of a message that I found endearing. We spent the whole day talking to each other—time that Gaby probably should have been working and I should have been studying—but neither of us cared. When it came time for one of us to ask the other out on a date however, we hit a snafu: my mom was flying in the next morning to spend the whole weekend with me for the first time since I moved to New York. So when Gaby asked me out that weekend, I had to tell her that I couldn’t, that I was completely booked up for the next four days. Our conversation had been going so well and neither of us particularly wanted to wait that long to see each other, so Gaby took a chance and asked if I perhaps wanted to come over to her apartment and hang out that very night. We only lived one subway stop away from each other at that point—an extremely important consideration for anyone living and dating in New York—so I took a chance myself and said yes. I left my friend’s place (it was October and we were watching Hocus Pocus of course), I took the subway that one stop, started walking to her apartment, and she met me halfway so I didn’t have to walk alone. We ended up binge-watching the entire first season of the tv show What We Do in the Shadows that night, staying up until dawn. When I had to go back to my own apartment to get ready for my mom to get in the next morning, Gaby walked me to the subway, gave me her number and a kiss goodbye, and that was our beginning. Now it's three years later and we have created a life, a home, a family, a community, and a union, together. And still, throughout it all, every October 11th we watch some iteration of What We Do in the Shadows to celebrate the anniversary of when we first met. – Karina Grady-Moreno, 2022

Our engagement didn’t exactly go as planned. We had just gone upstate to the Finger Lakes for my (Karina) birthday where we were supposed to get engaged by a beautiful waterfall with local wine and a picnic basket. Unfortunately though, Gaby’s ring for me didn’t make it in time; it came the day we got home. Four days later, we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and walked around looking at everything in bloom. From there, Gaby took me to her favorite place in Prospect Park: the Ravine. She asked me to sit down with her—by a different waterfall this time—and she began reading a letter she had written to me in her perfect handwriting. Both of us were crying uncontrollably while a random man was running up and down the stairs right next to us, unable to take the hint. But that didn’t matter because it was perfect. Gaby’s letter ended with “Will you marry me?”, to which I, obviously, said yes. She gave me the ring she had picked out for me and I gave her the ring she had told me, in no uncertain terms, was the only one she would accept. We ran home, nearly avoiding getting caught in the rain, and called our parents, friends, and family to tell them the news. We celebrated by going out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants that night and shared a bottle of champagne with some of our friends who live here. Gaby’s proposal letter is still hung up in a frame on our bedroom wall where we can look at it every day and be reminded of one of the best moments of our lives. — Karina Grady-Moreno, 2022