We met back in 2008, freshman year of high school at Staten Island Tech, in Mrs. Palma's classroom. We were attending the first meeting of Tech TV. Chelsea remembers sitting across from Angelo and thinking, "huh, who is that guy?" Little did she know she was sitting across from her future husband. They became friends and Angelo even asked Chelsea out in January 2009, but she said no and after an awkward Valentine's Day, they mostly stopped speaking to each other. But that fall, they reconnected and became friends again. Then on May 24th, 2010, after a bad loss in a baseball game and a pinched nerve, Angelo thought, "what the heck!" and asked Chelsea out again. The rest, as they say, is history.

The last few years, we've gone on a few long weekend getaways in the winter. To shake things up, we decided to take a trip in the fall and see if the foliage in Vermont really was beautiful this time of year (spoiler alert: it is). Earlier in the week, Angelo told me we should get manicures before leaving, which was not out of the ordinary before trips or special occasions, so I didn't question it. But what did make me suspicious was Angelo brought it up multiple times before we went. Why did he care so much about our nails, I thought. We now know why. We left for Manchester, VT on Saturday, October 5th, 2019 and after checking into our hotel, made our way to the top of Mt. Equinox. It was a beautiful, bright day and the foliage was lovely. But I was still suspicious, and kept thinking "is he going to propose up here?" It would've been a nice spot for it, but soon we found ourselves at the bottom of the mountain. With no proposal, I told myself it probably wasn't going to happen and got it out of my head. We next made our way to a trail that led to a gorgeous pond beneath the mountains. Angelo told me the sunset was beautiful here and even though it was only 4:30pm and not near sunset hours, I didn't question him. The trail around the pond ended up being closed for a wedding, but luckily we could sit in front of the only open section and take in the view. Angelo, who had been telling me he wasn't ready for marriage yet, looked at me and apologized for still not being ready but saying he loved me. I told him it was okay, not realizing he was setting me up. He told me to turn around so he could take a picture of me, and when I turned back to face him, there he was on one knee. I blacked out from excitement on his speech, but he asked me to marry him and there was no way I was saying no to spending the rest of my life with my best friend.