We met the classic millennial way - on Hinge. A few summers ago, I ran across a cute (seemingly normal) guy, and liked his picture. Not long after, he messaged me back, starting a discussion from one of my prompts: "My most controversial opinion is that carrot cake is the most underrated cake." (He agreed, but said that cheesecake is better). We talked off and on for a few weeks, and finally set up a time to meet. Mike was 10 minutes early... he arrived at the restaurant before I even left my apartment. (I had to be fashionably late, right?) We met at Social Cantina in Carmel and had the brilliant idea of splitting a pitcher of margaritas on a casual Monday night -- and the rest is history. I left our date and immediately called my friend (now bridesmaid!) Ellie to debrief, and told her that I had a good feeling about this guy from Michigan and was excited to see him again. Now, the second date is a good story -- maybe you'll be lucky enough to hear about it sometime.

After a year and a half of dating I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Evelyn, so I figured I would ask her if she’d like to do the same. I set up a plan around Christmas to recreate our first date as our Christmas Dinner, and even got her to think it was completely her own idea. I had everything planned with dinner at Social Cantina, walking to the same bar after dinner, and coming back to propose at the spot of our first kiss. Even though I almost let it slip multiple times, I thought I hid the surprise well….which was confirmed when the day before dinner she cancelled to have dinner with co-workers (thanks Paula). Having no way to convince her to bail on them without her being suspicious, I had to delay a week. On try #2, we found out during the day that the bar we went to on the first date closed 2 days prior (if only we kept the original date…). So, with a slight change of plans, we still went to the restaurant and a bar across the street. Walking back to our spot I knew she had no idea what was about to happen based on whatever she was talking about at the time (turns out it’s hard to pay attention right before proposing). After having to stall an extra 60 seconds longer than planned for my secret photographer to get in place (thanks again Jess!) and Evelyn still being very confused as to what I was doing, I tried getting through the speech I practiced to Daphne all afternoon…and failed miserably. I’m still not sure what all I said, but I finally got to the part of asking her to marry me and got the best yes this salesman has ever gotten.