It was December 2017 and both Matt and Patti were at their families for the Christmas holiday. Typical millenials, they both happened to be on a dating app called Hinge. Matt thought Patti was cute and looked fun to hang out with, and somehow all of Matt's photos of him partying at USC games weren't enough to discourage Patti. They started texting quite a bit over the holidays, and once they were both back home in January Matt suggested they meet for drinks at a restaurant that they both loved: Meddlesome Moth. The first date went great and things picked up pretty quickly from there, including celebrating Matt's birthday together just a week after they first met. From there on out, they were spending as much time as they could together.

At the beginning of 2020, we had a conversation at our dinner table talking about how the pandemic would affect our plans for 2020. Patti was very upset that it would set back their opportunity to get engaged and also their plans to buy a house. However, they spoke about how in the grand scheme of things those were peanuts compared to what others were going through. As the year progressed the conversation about engagement came up often. Every time an opportunity for gifting came up Patti's answer would always be a house and a ring. It was a common occurrence for Patti to send Matt engagement rings she liked on Instagram -- okay at a certain point it was almost daily. The discussion began to be around, "Is it selfish to get engaged during a pandemic when there are much bigger things to be concerned with? Also, we can't celebrate now so what's the point." Then as the year was coming to a close Patti knew Matt's days were limited to ask her to marry her during the year of 2020. They had to cancel their plans for the holiday as the pandemic got worse during Thanksgiving and Christmas. They made the hard choice to stay home for Christmas. And on Christmas morning in their pajamas, they began to open their presents to each other before Facetiming family members to do a "virtual" present opening. When all the gifts were open Matt said, "oh, I forgot one..." and walked into their dining room. When Patti turned around to see what it was Matt was getting down on one knee. As Matt began to ask for Pattis' hand in marriage their dog Pickles started barking and trying to bite Yoda. Matt did not finish his speech because of the dogs but Patti said yes.