Friday, September 26, 2025 | Late Afternoon The Union Bluff Hotel & Meeting House 8 Beach Street, York Beach ME 03909

In Summer of 2013, Michelle was a grad student living at UMass Lowell and Ralph was spending his summer traveling the country working on the Vans Warped Tour music festival. One night, Michelle was hanging out with friends when one of them invited the group to hop in the car to pick up a friend at the airport. That friend was Ralph. Michelle and Ralph had crossed paths at campus events and parties, but this is the night they both consider their first time meeting. Over the next year, Michelle and Ralph spent more time with their group of UML friends and became friends themselves. Ralph was a frequent visitor at Michelle’s Merrimack Street apartment, often coming over to spend time with mutual friends, showing up after working many a UMass Lowell hockey game or looking for a place to crash. Eventually he even claimed his own drawer in the TV stand in the Living Room. Through the summer of 2014, the year was filled with many memorable nights, from dance parties with Ralph as the DJ, to Margarita Mondays, and plenty of home-cooked food (shoutout Ralph’s incredible chicken parm, and the questionable “leek soup") and along the way Michelle and Ralph became good friends. As the years went on, Michelle and Ralph’s friendship grew beyond just their group of friends, and they would meet up for after-work dinner and drinks in Boston where Ralph was working or at Yard House, closer to Curry College, where Michelle worked. Many nights consisted of chicken nachos and beer (a dinner of champions), sharing the latest on each other’s lives, including recent dates or relationships, often leading to bartenders’ confusion that they weren’t a couple. By 2017, Michelle and Ralph were close friends, often seeing each other multiple times a week, Ralph helping Michelle move apartments (several times), and genuinely enjoying each other’s company. Like many friendships turned relationship, everyone started insisting they were a couple and asking when they were going to “make it official”. By the end of that year, they did just that – going out for a formal date night in Boston, featuring the spiciest Cajun pasta known to mankind, and a late-night walk through the Boston Common.

In August 2023, Michelle and Ralph bought a house in Tewksbury and made the move from their Medford apartment of 5 years. That December, as Michelle and Ralph were settling into their new home, embracing house projects, and celebrating 6 years together, they headed to Florida with friends for much-needed time away and a break from the cold weather. While on a cruise to the Bahamas, Ralph had a plan would conclude with him on one knee with an engagement ring in his hand at the beach, with a beautiful island backdrop. Thankfully he had backup plans, as the initial plan completely derailed when Michelle decided that she had enough with the beach (and Ralph) for the day, and headed back to the ship to enjoy the afternoon by the pool. She even questioned why Ralph brought a rolled up pair of socks to the beach. That evening, Ralph invited friends over to their room to watch the ship depart port. What Michelle thought was a casual gathering with friends to watch the sunset and have a pre-dinner drink from their balcony, was actually a carefully crafted plan to propose. Michelle had no idea the proposal was coming – even answering an earlier question by saying “There’s no way Ralph is planning to propose. If he had a ring on this ship, he’d be acting really weird.” Looking back on those days, Ralph was in fact acting a little suspicious, but Michelle was none the wiser. When she turned around from taking pictures of the skyline, Ralph was down on one knee proposing with her Nana’s engagement ring. She was shocked in the most excited way. They enjoyed their first few days engaged on vacation, sharing the exciting news with close family and friends. Since the cruise, they’ve settled into their new house and welcomed the newest member of the family, their rescue puppy, Chipper. At the start of 2025, they decided this was the year they were going to get married and started getting serious with the details of planning their wedding.

Michelle and Ralph are so excited to host their friends and family in York Beach, Maine in September. York Beach holds a special place for the couple, both of them spending many summers there as kids. Michelle’s family vacationed along Short Sands adjacent to the Union Bluff Hotel every summer while Ralph spent summers with Nana and Grandpa at Camp Eaton along Long Sands. As a couple, Michelle and Ralph have been going to York since they first started dating – enjoying clam chowder at the Lobster Cove, walking the beaches, grabbing a drink at York Beach Beer Company, and occasionally spending their anniversary weekend at the Anchorage Inn or Union Bluff. In the early months of the pandemic, Michelle and Ralph would take the ride up to York Beach just to get out of the house. They would grab takeout food from the Union Bluff and enjoy it on the beach or in the car by the beach. York Beach is a special place to Michelle and Ralph, both individually and as a couple, so after exploring venues, The Union Bluff in York Beach felt like the perfect place to say "I do".