In early February of 2020 (Pre-Pandemic) while swiping on the infamous Tinder, a match was made! Many a late night was spent up talking....while some parties even fell asleep on the phone... in about a weeks time we had planned our first date! We would take photos of his new puppy, grab some food and just get to know each other better! We both felt promise and had high hopes...I think from the very beginning something felt different. Sebastian, living on the island of Vinalhaven, was preparing to take him and his young, two month old pup Chewie on some-what of a road trip down to Southern Maine to meet Mahaley! We met at the hotel he had gotten a room in for the night and from there Mahaley navigated them to Deering Oaks in Portland where she took photos of lil' Chew! Afterwords they grabbed some Chinese food and watched Gaurdians of the Galaxy movies, of course we hit it off so well at some point we stopped really paying attention and eyes were only on each other, intently listening to what the other had to say. We learned so much about each other, and ourselves... deciding we wanted to see this through- we were "exclusive"! We left that date feeling giddy, hopeful and excited for what the future would bring! And that meant it was immediately time to plan his next escape from the island to come see Mahaley! *SPOILER ALERT* He makes it off the island the following week where they meet in Augusta to help his brother and girlfriend move and from that day on- together they'd be! As boyfriend and girlfriend - fiance's and husband and wife!

During the month of May we celebrated Sebastian's 23rd Birthday and Mahaley took a two week business trip halfway across the country! After this whirlwind of a month filled with many long hours and weeks of work a long weekend rolled around for Memorial Day. Sebastian made plans to have dinner at Dimillo's Restaurant (something Mahaley had mentioned on several occasions she wanted to do) He called to make reservations all by himself and even arranged for the "ride services" of none other than Mahaley's best friend, Kaleigh and sister, Inga. He booked us a room at the very same hotel he first stayed at on our first date and we were off to our dinner in Inga's Corolla- it was a black dress occasion I thought! Dressed to the nines we had drinks and dinner and then Kaleigh chauffeured them across town. But while in the car (so he made it seem) Sebastian has an idea- we should go to Deering Oakes Park, the location of our first date and have Kaleigh take a couple nice photos of us (because having nice photos of them was something Mahaley had mentioned before). We get to the park and Sebastian finds us a nice spot on the water and as Kaleigh takes photos of us Sebastian spins me around as he gets down on one knee- he pops the question! Spoiler Alert again... she said yes! And to Mahaley's surprise he's hired a photographer who hid in the bushes and caught the whole thing from across the pond! We take some photos and even stumble across our initials miraculously carved into the bridge just where our photographer posed us, surprising us all! That's a sign if I've ever seen one! Then they head to Mahaley's parents house to celebrate the good news! Upon arriving we're all greeted with one more surprise- balloons, flowers, family, cake and snacks are laid out everywhere making it one special day. One for the books I'd say!