We met in New York (online initially) in March of 2017 through a dating app called "Coffee Meets Bagel." It took a while for us to connect in person as Tim was taking business trips to Poland and Merrill was on tour with "Pirates of Penzance" through Washington state. Merrill sent Tim photos of the show from the road and asked Tim to send her photos of anything in Poland, even what he was eating since Tim had a hard time thinking up things to photograph. Our first date was in April of 2017 and that summer we went on vacation to southern France together! Tim came to Atlanta for Christmas that year and met Merrill's family. In 2018 we moved to an apartment in Park Slope Brooklyn together and went to Egypt that Spring. In early 2019 we visited London and Merrill met Sue (Tim's mother). Tim proposed a few months later, in May, and three months later (in August 2019) we moved to San Francisco! Fortunately we traveled in January of 2020 (just ahead of the pandemic) to Japan and New Zealand meeting more of each other's family. Then we settled in for a nice quiet couple of pandemic years in SF making our house in Noe Valley a home and very glad to be out of New York!

Tim had never been to Disney World, so that had to be remedied. Merrill had a business conference to attend in Orlando in May 2019 which provided the perfect opportunity. After the conference, we stayed several more days alternating a day at a Disney Park with an "off day" spent exploring something else to help pace ourselves. It was on May 6, an "off day" from the park, spent exploring the Harry P. Lew Botanical Gardens, when Tim got down on his knee underneath an arching trellis at about 4pm and proposed with a lovely ring (a pale pink diamond). There were not many people in the garden at that point, and Merrill let the next people that wandered by, know what had happened. They were so excited to hear the news and took the photos that we have of that moment. Tim had such a great time proposing (he'd had a hard time deciding where to do it) that he decided to do it again that evening at dinner. He had a reservation at Hillstone restaurant which had a lovely dock on a secluded water front setting. Merrill's acting experience came in handy to make the moment realistic. Tim proposed on the dock at sunset surrounded by other diners. Waiters had gathered on the lawn who had been tipped off that a proposal was to occur. It was a great moment again and a beautiful end to a truly magical day.