We initially met in the Summer of 2013 in a very fleeting moment at South Branch (yes... the place that stole my boots), but were more formally re-introduced at a Deloitte Summer Event in September of 2014. I was in charge of helping plan this event, and my colleague who was infamous for inviting extra "plus-ones" to work parties had already been bugging me about bringing a few more people. I stood my ground on the numbers (I was already pushing the budget more than I should've been), so was irked to see him arrive at the event with clearly more than one plus ONE. However, I quickly became less irritated when I recognized Jonathan from the summer before. We spent more time talking than I probably should have during an event I was hosting :) Later in the evening, I was showing my business cards to my colleague who had been adamant that I order some (it only took me 2 years...), and he jokingly started throwing them up in the air. Jonathan never really asked for my number, and I don't actually remember how we left things that night, but I do remember meeting up with my cousin Rachel, Aunt Karen, and Uncle Dan, and mentioning I had met a pretty fun guy at my event. Later in the evening, I received a text from an unknown number. I guess he had taken advantage of the thrown business cards and grabbed a few. His suave pick-up lines didn't last long, but our loving banter, bad jokes, and willingness to learn from eachother certainly has!

Most people don't know the more boring version, but technically we briefly first met a year before our more fun story we usually share. We were both at a bar for happy hour on a summer Friday, and Kyndrea happened to work with the friend I was with. It was a brief encounter, and while I absolutely did think enough of it to try a couple of Google searches for "Kindrea" or "Kendria" nothing more came of it. Fast forward to the next summer, I was lucky enough to get invited by my same friend as a plus one to one of his work events, where not only was Kyndrea there, she had also been the one to plan it. It was a liberal interpretation of a "plus one" and as it turned out, I wasn't even the only friend he had invited. Kyndrea and I started talking and got along well from the beginning, and she was nice enough not to penalize me for being a freeloader to her work event. Things turned in my favor forever when my friend decided to take some of Kyndrea's newly-printed business cards and scatter them around for fun--I slyly grabbed a bunch, and reached out to her soon after to ask about a date. The rest is history!

Last March, we went on an amazing sailing trip in the British Virgin Islands with a group of friends. One afternoon, as we were all enjoying the beautiful scenery on Anegada Beach, I asked Kyndrea to go for a walk along the water - thankfully she resisted the urge to invite others to join! After realizing we had walked further than we expected (likely because I was trying my best to keep my cool during our conversation) I decided it was time, dropped to one knee, and popped the question. Although I maintain the "YES!" didn't actually come out for a while, I still immediately knew the answer! Once we arrived back to the group, the whole beach and bar area had been told what was happening and gave us a warm reception. Our friends also had a very special welcome ready with bubbles, music, and our own personalized "CONGRATS!" message handcrafted beautifully out of seaweed on the beach! That night we celebrated over a wonderful waterfront dinner and bubbly with the rest of the group.