The world has changed a lot in the past few months and we hope you are safe and healthy. While we are still planning to get married on August 1, it is clear that our day will look a little different than we originally planned. On August 1, we will be live streaming our wedding ceremony and we hope you will join us! How it works: • Here is the link you will use to watch the ceremony: http://www.live.mystreamingwedding.com/2020/0801-rachael-ryan/ • Starting at 5:45pm ET on Saturday, August 1, click on the link to access the live stream video. The ceremony will begin at 6pm and we will be live streaming through 7pm. • On the page you will be able to leave comments for us and also access their tech support if needed. The live streaming is supported on all major browsers, including Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer and Firefox. You can also watch on all iOS and Android devices version 4.0 and greater. Thanks for all the love, concern and patience. Lots of love, R & R

Every story can be told from two different points of view. Enjoy the retelling of our love story as told from each of us below. We can't wait to start the next chapter on August 1.

I love weddings! Where else can you have a few drinks and make a fool of yourself on the dance floor in front of friends, family and strangers. I was so excited to be invited to Kate Mason and Greg Reynold's wedding. A girl I've known for years and a great guy who had stolen her heart. It was of course going to be a great time. It was a beautiful ceremony. It was also a surprisingly warm day in the middle of September, and from what I remember, VERY warm in that church. So warm in fact, I thought I must have been hallucinating when I caught a glimpse of a gorgeous blonde woman near the back of the church. An angel?! Before the reception we stopped at Thin Man Brewery and there she was! The angel from the church, standing by the bar! I must introduce myself. I need an excuse. Oh, yes, of course I'll take a picture of you guys taking a Lemon Drop shot! RACHAEL! Her name's Rachael! Never forget that name. After introducing myself to her as as she sipped delicately on that shot, I was smitten and decided I must show off my dance moves! I never wanted to stop dancing with her. After a few hours, we finally took a little break from the dancing to catch our breath and went to sit in the back of the venue. We snacked on some dessert and sipped coffee and it was then that we had our first kiss. I even remember the song the band was playing. Wagon Wheel. Forever our song. As we look back at pictures from the wedding, we can see how we grew closer to each other as the night went on. I may have forgotten there was anybody else at the wedding. Except Tee. Nobody could ever forget about Tee.

I tagged along as a plus one of my friend Tee to the wedding of Greg and Kate Reynolds in Buffalo. Since it was the weekend after being the maid of honor for my sister, I was ready to relax and have some fun! Little did I know what was in store. While he now claims to have purposefully talked to me at the bar before the reception, I didn't notice Ryan until we were on the dance floor. If you know Ryan, you know he has some fancy dance moves and before I knew it we were dancing the night away. At the after party we ignored all of our friends to talk to each other (there's photo proof of that). We exchanged numbers and got to talk more over buffalo wings with friends the next day. I left Buffalo wondering why I already missed him.

The long distance relationship began when I realized I couldn't let Rachael disappear out of my life and so with a week's notice, I booked a flight to the terrifying city of New York. Upon making it to her doorstep, I was shocked to be reminded of just how beautiful Rachael is. I immediately embraced her and knew I made the right decision. After spending the weekend literally walking 10 miles around NYC, Rachael was lucky enough to endure her first Bills game at the Bills backers bar, McFadden's, my only request of the weekend. This was her first introduction to the grueling, drunken and mostly disappointing Bills Sundays that we all know and love. She now refuses to watch Bills football... A few weeks after the big NYC trip, we were somehow still talking, and she wanted to come visit Buffalo!...(I know!). So we chose a weekend and she booked her flight...and that weekend happened to be my nephew, Max's, 3rd birthday party! Hooray! Rachael gets to meet my WHOLE family! And of course, they loved her immediately. Especially the birthday boy. Max ran in circles sliding into Rachael's feet over and over again just to try and impress her, and impress her he did. I knew I should have done more sliding on the dance floor at the wedding.

After weeks of texting and hours-long FaceTime chats, we decided it was time to see each other in person to see what this was. Ryan decided to fly to NYC for the weekend. I promptly told all my friends in case he turned out to be a murderer. When he showed up at my door we were both nervous but quickly it felt easy. I knew I must really like him when I suffered through watching the Bills in a crowded bar where we couldn't sit down, only had Bud Light to drink and there was no chance of getting food. After his visit, we planned a weekend for me to come to Buffalo. After settling on a weekend and buying my flights Ryan remembered it was his nephew's birthday party and asked if I felt comfortable going. Of course! There would be lots of kids and people around so wouldn't be too weird to show up as a random girl. That weekend I found out that it wasn't a birthday party...it was a family dinner for his nephew's birthday. Not the same thing. Luckily, like everything else in our relationship this was easy! I felt comfortable chatting with his family and when Ryan dropped me off at the airport we knew we were in this for the long haul. That was the beginning of a year and a half spent flying back and forth between NYC and Buffalo. We really racked up our airline points!

I searched online for rings for months agonizing over finding one that was worthy of being worn by such an amazing woman. It took me one visit to Barbara Oliver to find a gorgeous diamond and a beautiful ring. Check. Now, how do I actually pop the question that I've been waiting to ask since the day I met her? I waited for the right situation to present itself...and it did. We got an invite to my cousins's wedding in Buffalo on a Friday night in October. It had to be in Buffalo, where it all started. Kate and Greg's wedding where we met was at Hotel Henry, so I booked a room for that Friday night. Good start. I had a feeling Rachael might be onto me when I wanted to take a selfie in front of the hotel the next morning. Not yet Rachael! That day Thin Man Brewery was having a dog Halloween costume party, and yes, it was as awesome as you would expect! (Thanks for supplying the pup, Mike!). Any hint Rachael may have had about a proposal was completely gone after being distracted by 30 friendly dogs in costumes. Afterwards, we went for a walk around Hoyt Lake, which we did many times when Rachael came to visit me in Buffalo. After drinking a couple beers, though, I had to pee...badly. Not a bathroom or porta-potty in sight. Oh well, let's do this! We had a nice relaxing walk and got back to the Albright-Knox back steps (locale of our first date in Buffalo). Recently we had visited and run up the Rocky steps in Philly, so we clearly had to race up these steps. I've never seen Rachael take anything more seriously. Boom, she blazed up the steps, while I prepared myself for the biggest moment of my life. Out of breath at the top, Rachael gloated over her impressive win. I really made her work for it. I recapped our Buffalo weekend thus far and how we'd revisited some important locations, and dropping to my knee I finally got to ask the question I've been waiting so long to ask. Her answer in that moment is still debatable. To be fair I still had to pee real bad.

We flew to Buffalo for Ryan's cousin's wedding the weekend of October 25. On that Friday night we went to the wedding and stayed the night at Hotel Henry (the hotel where the wedding we met at was held). I joked to Ryan that he couldn't propose to me the same day as someone else's wedding. The next morning we woke up to go to a Halloween dog costume party at Thin Man Brewery (the bar where Ryan claims he first talked to me). We stopped for another drink before heading to walk around the park since it was a nice day. After we circled the park, Ryan challenged me to race up the steps of Albright-Knox (Buffalo's art museum). I took this seriously and raced to the top. At the top of the stairs Ryan hugged me and pulled out the ring. We're not totally sure what either of us said after this but it was a lot of hugging and happy tears. The tears kept flowing as we stopped for a glass of champagne and FaceTime'd our families before heading to Ryan's sister's house for dinner. We spent the next week looking almost exclusively at my ring and smiling. We were so excited to start the next chapter of our lives together.