we're getting married!

Mike and Amanda met two days after Christmas in 2013. At the time, he was working in Miami for Carnival Cruise Line's Financial Division while she was entering her final semester at UConn. Amanda just happened to be in West Hartford visiting sorority alumnae friends when they mentioned stopping in Barcelona Wine Bar where their former colleague (who'd left for Florida a few months prior) and his friends were getting together; all home for the holidays. After hitting it off that first night, Mike and Amanda agreed to meet the next evening for what would be their first 'date' - back at Barcelona where they talked in a booth for hours - and the following morning Mike was on a plane back to Miami. Not a day has gone by since the night of December 27, 2013 that Mike and Amanda haven't spoken. By May, after a few months long-distance dating, poor Mike had made his way back to a much chillier CT for good. He launched his business, Amanda completed grad school and they've continued to visit the wine bar where it all began that December, many years now counting. On the morning of Christmas Eve 2019, Mike proposed as he and Amanda finished opening gifts in their home. All the while a relentless 9-month-old Finn squeaked his new ball alongside his dad throughout the proposal - Finn just HAD to be part of the big moment and they wouldn't have had it any other way.