Yay, marriage!

Watch the wedding live or later at: https://live.pirateslane.com/events/emma-nicholas

Emma- It all started a long time ago in a land just down the road... Nicholas- We first met last March (2019) when I was going to see Captain Marvel with a friend. He and I joined some of his college friends for brunch before the movie and during the movie Emma and I sat next to each other. She joked through the movie and was just funny and infrequent enough to get away with it. I distinctly remember in a climactic scene where Captain Marvel stands up against adversity all throughout her life, Emma snarked at the dramatization, sighing "Ah, America!" (which she's lucky didn't wound my patriotic sensibilities). E- Then June rolls around, and I'm about to leave Boston for two months to go do research with the Australian government. I rock up to a Friday night prayer meeting at Aletheia. Then three things happen: 1) After prayer is finished and folks are mingling, I fold paper planes out of the lyric sheets to throw around the YMCA theatre, and Nicholas joins me! Much frolicking. 2) The two of us head down to Mainely Burgers with some other Aletheia folks. Much banter. I mention that I’m a bit stressed figuring out housing for the summer. 3) He asks me for my number! Butterflies? Just friends? Crush? E- Then a few days later, something super cool happens E- He texts me, following up and asking about how my housing search is going. My other friends hadn't followed up! This guy I barely knew had remembered and followed up! E- In the past, I had been usually oblivious to other people's romantic interest in me, but this follow-up text struck me as a Clue E- So then I leave the country for eight weeks...

Emma- While I was out of the country, we exchanged many, many texts Nicholas- Yes, many, many texts. Time zones meant we couldn't really text in real time, so I'd send a few messages and she'd respond to all them the next morning while I was at work and then I'd respond to her at night/after work, while she was asleep. N- We spoke about Aletheia and academics and theology and family and friends and I told her about how I joined my fraternity and by the end it was a foregone conclusion that we'd go on a date when she got back to the States. (Certainly, I knew this when I awoke one morning to 30+ messages from her) E- The progression from "I think we like each other" penpals to dating was also fun! E- It involves an Aletheia sermon that summer telling the young, single men of the Church to "ask her out to coffee!" and a message from Nicholas about a week before I got back to Boston asking me "I believe you said you'd be back by Saturday, so do you want to get coffee or a meal together then?" E- As it turns out, neither of us drinks coffee E- I take three flights from Australia to Boston, immediately move apartments, and then go out on a first date with Nicholas the very next day. It was mediocre, and neither of us explicitly said "I like-like you and this is a date" N- Yeah, it was kinda mediocre. Oh well, the ensuing relationship has been great!

Emma- That weekend, we're both at an Aletheia leaders' meeting. I introduce him my college roommate Emily, who that same day, I believe, laments that there are no good single men in her NYC church, and tells me I should date someone at Aletheia. I awkwardly change the conversational topic. She later asks me about that guy from the leaders meeting. E- Then I somehow manage to sneak him into my birthday potluck/housewarming dinner, which was entirely "old friends", who somehow, by the grace of God, don't "connect the dots" and ask if we were dating or anything. David Fulton did some sort of "oh I didn't expect to see you here" double-take, but thankfully didn't push the matter. Nicholas- Yeah, David didn't know at Emma's party Sunday night, but I did tell him Wednesday evening after community group. He told me that he "blessed it both ways. You know how sometimes you'll tell the guy you bless it and the girl to get out of there? This isn't like that. I bless it both ways." E- At the party, Veronica, bless her, in excellently and kindly making conversation with the new person in the room, straight-up asked Nicholas if he hoped to have a family someday, and if so, how many children. While I was sitting next to them both! Nicholas handled the questions and the awkwardness like a pro.

Nicholas- When I was thinking about where to take her for date numero dos, I decided on the comfort food genre, because who doesn't like that? I searched Google Maps for comfort food in Somerville and found that there was a place with a good-looking menu only a few minutes walk from her place. Excellent! So, we went to Trina's Starlight Lounge. N- We got there and found that it was not quite what we expected (probs should have thought for more than a second about the word "lounge"). Turns out, it was mostly a bar. But, we stayed anyways and had a blast (and quite good food) N- This date was much better than our first date. It included me letting her know, in case it wasn't clear, that these were in fact dates. Luckily, she agreed. Emma- My favourite date was at the end of that month, a truly spectacular date. I had heard of an Australian pie shop across the river in East Boston, and we decide to try it out. He plays the perfect gentleman by coming to my place to pick me up, and we walked to the T together. Once we hit East Boston, we wandered along the harbour and found a little jetty to walk down, sit on the end of, and watch the sunset together all romantic-like. Boston looked particularly glorious from across the water during sunset. E- We made our way to KO pies down in the Shipyard, had some excellent meat pies (I think Nicholas was shocked when I picked up the pie to eat with my hands, as is common in NZ) E- After that, when we wandered back past the harbour towards the T, we found a playground, and decided to stop for a little while. A long while later, after much breathless laughter and chasing and swinging and lying on the ground looking up together, we finally went home. It was magical. I remember feeling incredibly happy, and incredibly lucky and hopeful. And shyly admitting to some friends that week that "I never knew dating could be so fun!"

Nicholas- One month after our first date, I took her to Area Four Pizza for lunch, and asked her “you don’t need to answer right now, but do you consider me to be your boyfriend?” That night, she texted me an enthusiastic “yes, please!” And so it was. Emma- Over the course of the next few months, we said “I love you", visited his Florida family for Thanksgiving, visited my New Zealand family in January, and became Covid-buddies in March, working from each other’s apartments nearly every day. E- Ten months after our first date, we set aside the day to celebrate this little milestone. We dressed up a little, went back to the KO Pies for lunch (my fave fall date), chatted on some playground swings, stopped for ice-cream, bought some flowers, roamed around a used bookshop, and wound up back at Trina’s, the restaurant of our first dinner-date. When we got home afterwards, he pointed to the Trina’s postcard, (which I had pinned to my corkboard after that first dinner date), and asked me to grab it for him. He’d written on the back “Will you marry me?” and I turned around to find him down on one knee with a ring in his hand. I said, “yes, please!!”