The Ceremony will begin at 3:30pm. Please arrive no later than 3:15pm to allow time to get settled. Cocktail hour is 4-5pm, followed by the reception from 5-9pm. We can't wait to celebrate with you all!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In 2019, I started at ATA Martial Arts of West Chester. As an adult student most of the instructors were younger than me, except for a small handful - Dante was one of them. He had been assigned to teach in Thursday night Beginners class and we bonded over being born the same year and being two of the youngest “Tall Trees” (aka adult students). We became friends but never saw each other or really talked outside the confines of ATA. Fast forward to 2021, I posted a picture complaining about gas prices (lol) and Dante replied back with the same sentiment. We had both just been traveling (me to my first National tournament and Dante to a large music festival) and were lamenting the cost of filling up our cars upon returning to work. That turned into meeting up for drinks “as friends” on Halloween… at least that was the plan. We met up for drinks, it was honestly kind of awkward since we had never hung out just us before and had hardly seen each other for a year and a half (thanks Covid/being in different rank classes). But when we got home Dante told me he was “going to consider that our first date.” A few days more of talking and I then asked him out to dinner later that week. Dante asked me to be his girlfriend that night.

A month and a half into dating we all got Covid over Christmas which led to us quarantining together to avoid giving it to my parents. Christmas Eve we said “I love you” to each other the first time. The next morning we kind of looked at each other like “did the other person actually say that or am I hallucinating?” Thankfully it was not a figment of our imaginations! The following years were full of ups and downs (like funerals, a few broken bones, and a car accident), but plenty of great memories too! Like getting my 1° black belt in December of 2022 and Dante getting to be the one to tie it on. 2022-2024 saw Dante passing all his midterms towards his 5° black belt. In June of 2024 I won two District titles thanks to all of the support from Dante and our families. In August of 2024, I got my 2° black belt and officially became Dante’s classmate rather than his student — it was a very weird yet happy moment for both of us. In November of 2024 we celebrated 3 years dating and started talking about getting engaged. We went and talked to the jeweler at the end of that month. January of 2025 saw Dante testing for his level 3 certified instructor collar and I for my level 1 collar. Little did I know how much pressure there was on us both passing our collar tests! Dante had realized that the only place he could propose without my catching on would be at the studio and he needed the presentation of our new collars to be the cover story for why additional family was going to be at testing. The ring was done and the uniforms were in on time, but the unexpected last hurdle was convincing me to actually midterm as I was nervous I wouldn’t break my boards since I was coming back from a broken hand. I realize now why he was so insistent that I test; and I’m glad I did since I came home that night with a gorgeous ring and my first ever perfect 12. It really was a beautiful full circle moment for him to propose in the very place that we met.

I've never been good at multi level planning, so to say this was a challenge is an understatement. In early December I started thinking of different ways to propose. Different places, different times, how it was all gonna work, how I was gonna get everyone that needed to be there to be there without giving away what was going to happen. Everything I thought about had basically the same problem: "Hanna will sniff this out immediately". And on the way home from ATA one night, it hit me. "What better full circle moment than to propose at the studio!" So I got the where figured out, now I needed figure the when, and how to get parents and grandparents to the studio without raising suspicions. One day when I got to the studio before Hanna arrived I talked to Chief Master Jouan and told him my idea and he helped me out with all the details. In about 10 minutes we got mostly everything figured out: The best time to do it is at belt testing and I'll be the special guest judge, because after a testing with a guest judge, normally that person says a few words. Next step was figuring out the"excuse" for having my parents, Hanna's grandparents, and her best friend at the testing (especially since Hanna doesn’t like the added pressure of extra people being there to watch). I thought about it for a couple days and then Chief Master Jouan mentioned the Legacy collar up camp that was coming up and that's when it hit me. I test and get my certified black collar, and boom there's my "excuse", as new collars are normally presented during testing. At that point it was all about timing and execution. The ring needed to be finished (which our ring guy said it would be done in plenty of time), we both needed to pass our collar tests, AND the new uniforms needed to arrive in time - which was the only uncontrollable wildcard aspect of the plan. All the while trying to keep all this a secret from my best friend. In the coming weeks, the ring came in and looked perfect! Both myself and Hanna passed our collar tests. Uniforms came in a couple weeks before testing, and I was able to successfully keep the plan a secret and hide the ring from Hanna. The week of the February testing, Chief Master clued in the rest of the staff at the studio of the plan. I could barely focus on work the entire week. And on top of it all, Hanna decided to inadvertently give me a panic attack by saying she didn't want to midterm test because she was worried about the board breaking part of the test. In her defense, she had broken her hand during sparring at the December testing and was narrowly cleared in time for testing and had hardly broken boards since. I reassured her that she has got it and gave her one of my favorite famous sayings that I live by from the immortal Wayne Gretzky, "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take! Worst case scenario is you fail but at least you tried, but obviously you’re going to crush it!" Fast forward to the day of: Chief Master called me in the morning, confirming final specifics. I was so nervous all day. Made it through the work day. Butterfly's started forming in my stomach. Got to the studio, talked to a couple of the staff members and testing began. Everything went according to plan. Thankfully Hanna crushed her boards and broke both on the first try. Testing finished, Chief Master Jouan did his post testing speech, and turned over the metaphorical mic to me. I gave my speech, proposed to Hanna, she said yes, everyone went crazy and we officially got engaged! Oh yeah, and Hanna got her first perfect 12 on that midterm too ;) If you’ve made it this far and still want to watch the full speech, the video is fully captioned and linked on the Gallery tab