You never think heading into college that you'd find the love of your life. Let's rewind to the winter of 2012 when I signed up for a Kinesiology course (as a Journalism major). Throughout the months during this class, I never really paid any attention to the guys, except the two that would use this time to get their daily workout in (the class was half lifting, half classroom). One of those kids turns out to be Ray. I never thought of him as anything more than the guy in my Knes class, until one day he came up to me after class and asked me to meet up with him that night. As the story goes ... they did not meet up that night. But, not meeting up that night ended up becoming the beginning of their forever. We went to our first Baltimore Orioles game on Friday, May 11 where they beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3. This was just the start to the countless number of games we attended together, including two opening days. As a girl from NJ, Ray never expected that I would have a love for country music. As a guy from Maryland, I expected him to have a love for country music. Needless to say, we've been to a variety of 'yeehaw' shows where we had the time of our lives. Throughout the years, we've embarked on many adventures from trips to Disney, Wildwood, the Poconos, and summers at the beach where Nicole learned the ways of crabbing and clamming. We've had the opportunity to cheer many of our favorite sports teams to victory, attended a plethora of sporting events and Broadway shows, traveled to different breweries and wineries, played intramural sports together, enjoyed a variety of different foods, attended many festivals, and the adventures continue today. In the summer of 2015, a four legged, furry goofball named Nike entered our lives and has certainly changed it for the better. Now fast forward to the present, 8.5 years later, and come May 2021, we'll both say "I Do" to a new adventure.

After being with someone for so long, you start to hope there will be a proposal with EVERYTHING that you do! Nicole was constantly keeping her eye out for hints. Little did she know that Ray had a surprise proposal all planned out. Every year since they moved in together, Nicole and Ray would go to a tree farm and cut down a fresh Christmas tree -- This was a Durante family tradition. It was just another Saturday and Nicole took her time getting ready to go. Ray went outside to his car to grab his snow gloves to help cut down the tree, but oddly had them in the front pockets of his jacket. I thought that was odd and insisted he just hold them or put them in my bag - but he was persistent in keeping them there. Every year we typically pick a new tree farm to explore, but this year Ray was very adamant on going back to the same one we went to the previous year -- after some attempt at convincing him to go somewhere else, he won. We finally get there and Ray takes Nicole up this big hill towards the back of the farm, which had trees too little to cut, but posed for the perfect proposal spot. As Nicole started to walk away towards another part of the farm .... Ray turned Nicole around and said “You know I love you, right?” And that is when she knew the moment was finally here. Ray got down on one knee, opened up the box, and this stunning ring appeared. There we are, both crying tears of joy in the middle of a tree farm. Then out of nowhere a photographer Ray hired pops up and starts snapping the moment. It doesn’t end there! We decided to head back towards the front of the farm before taking photos and all of a sudden our entire family, parents, brothers, grandma, and best friends pop up around the corner! December 7, 2019 was a very special day that involved surprises, tears, and celebrations!