Melissa and Ben met through their mutual friend Lilia (our Maid of Honor). Ben was roommates with her husband Anthony (our Best Man) during undergrad at George Washington University, and lived with Anthony and Lilia after college. Melissa met and worked with Lilia at IBM. Late into 2018 Ben moved into a new apartment, which by complete chance happened to be only two floors downstairs from where Melissa was living. Despite this they didn't formally meet until 8 months later, even though they'd see each other many times in passing. In August 2019, Ben had planned a game board night at his new place and had invited over Lilia, Anthony, and Christine (our bridesmaid). Christine couldn't make it that night, so Lilia invited Melissa over in her place. Together the group taught Melissa how to play the game Settlers of Catan, and she ended up closely beating Ben (who had 9 victory points). Ben playfully started screaming in defeat, and Melissa (being equally competitive) found him to be very endearing. Ben left a selfie on Melissa's phone when she stepped away, and Melissa used that as an in to ask Ben to hang out again. In the early days of spending time together Ben challenged Melissa to complete the New York Times "36 Questions That Lead to Love" broken up into a series of date nights, often accompanied by Luna, Melissa's cat, or Luna, Ben's dog, a good glass of red wine, and one of their favorite TV shows. They knew early on that they were falling for each other. On 10/5/19, Melissa asked Ben to be her boyfriend, and on 4/20/22, Ben asked Melissa to be his wife. Waiting for them when they got back from the proposal was Settlers of Catan, where in a truly full circle moment Ben beat Melissa.