Zach and I connected on a dating app called Inner Circle. It’s funny, because whenever I tell people that, no one has ever heard of it, which leads me to believe he created the app and lured me into it. I guess we will never know! Through miscommunication, it took us some time before we actually met, but it finally happened! It was an extremely rainy day in Dallas, I was heading to our friends’ wine shop, Neighborhood Cellar, and I thought I left my candle burning in my apartment. I called Z to let him know I would be late, and he was stressed and lost in Dallas. He suggested a location switch to Crú Wine Bar in West Village. As I was walking into the restaurant under my umbrella, there Z was, walking up at the same time, under his own umbrella. We sat at the restaurant for hours, chatting and drinking wine, and I knew that night that I had found him.

Lounge Here was one of Miss T & I’s first date nights. That night also happened to be the night I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. So when it was time to propose, I did the responsible thing & made a reservation & made sure my parents and her parents would be around to celebrate. September 26th was open on the magnet calendar she keeps on the fridge. All that was left to do was to block it off on Miss T’s calendar and not raise any suspicions. I asked our friends Mike and Schaeffer to propose a double date to make sure that night stayed booked. Rather than a joyful reply, Miss T sadly stated she had to sponsor a happy hour. This was not on said magnetic fridge calendar. Attempts at getting her to bail were met with resistance. I resorted to inviting myself to her happy hour. Something I had never done before. Suspicions were raised. Thanks to her friend, Jess, I had the lay of the land of the importance of the happy hour (low) and some of her work friends knew what my real mission for the night was. These strangers turned into fast friends and important characters of this momentous night helped calm my nerves and shepherd Miss T and I out the door a good hour early before our double date. Miss T’s suspicions: still raised. As we left the happy hour to head to Lounge Here, Miss T immediately raised suspicions as we were not headed towards the neighborhood where we were supposed to meet our friends. In all of the times I chauffeured her around, this was the first time she actually paid attention to where we were going. Any chances at a surprise were squashed.

Through a 10 minute drive with Miss T pestering me like a child on a road trip, we finally arrived to Lounge Here. This was absolutely not the location where we were meeting our friends. I walked ahead unfazed and scolded Mike and Schaeffer for canceling last minute. Did she not see the text (there was no text)? I opened the door, expecting Lounge Here to be crowded with a wait, like it always is. We were greeted by 8 total people in the restaurant. I told the hostess my name for our reservation. Miss T immediately (and sarcastically) questioned why I had a reservation. We were seated at a half-booth looking out to the rest of the (not) jam-packed restaurant. As we both ordered Negroni’s, I added two proseccos to our order (the restaurant called me to let me know they did not have champagne). True to form, Miss T did not let this go unnoticed. After the prosecco was dropped off at our table, I tried to go into the words I had written out and spoken into the mirror so many times before. Unfortunately, those words were not coming out. Fortunately, Miss T was supportive and laughing and crying along with me. I excused myself to go to the bathroom, grab some composure and get the ring box outside of my sock (side note: they need to make ring boxes that do not look like ring boxes when they are in the pockets of one’s khakis). Once I returned to the table, the words slowly started sputtering out. We continued to exchange laughs and tears and eventually I asked her to marry me. Much to my surprise, she said yes.